Music and vocals by Andrew Richardson.
Lyrics: David Gardiner

This is the opening song of the musical. It is sung by a sinister male figure who walks slowly down from the stage and along the aisle, while gunmen in Balaclavas train their weapons on the audience, 'covering' the singer. The song ends with a fusilade of gunfire as the lights cut to black.

We dream of Eden’s verdant fields
The present to the future yields
Our history hasn’t yet begun
There’s so much of our race to run

The old shall usher in the new
And we, the noble, eager few
Our privilege to pay the price
Of engineering paradise

It hovers slightly out of sight
We must not doubt that we are right
There can’t be any compromise
We’ll kill or die or trade in lies

The innocent are merely means
They decorate our battle scenes
Your principles you put on ice
While engineering paradise

Do what it takes to seize the day
And God will look the other way
Be ruthless for our cause is right
And nothing comes before this fight

A boil needs cutting – use the lance!
The time has come to take your chance
The Devil’s here to roll the dice
For engineering paradise

This isn’t work for feeble will
You cannot hesitate to kill
The way ahead is clear to see
And when we’ve won they’ll all agree

There wasn’t any other way
The priests, the Church, the world will say
How right we were to pay the price
For engineering paradise 

SINGERS & SONGWRITERS WANTED to help develop this project
- contact sirat@davidgardiner.net

Opening Song

Music and vocals by Andrew Richardson
Lyrics by David Gardiner

Father Walsh, the headmaster of Danny's school, explains his position on life, the universe and everything.

SINGERS & SONGWRITERS WANTED to help develop this project
- contact sirat@davidgardiner.net

Introducing Father Walsh

Music and vocals by Andrew Richardson
Lyrics by David Gardiner

Big Jim Harrison, the Commander of the Belfast Brigade of the IRA, falls into a reflective mood and has a vision of the carnage he is about to set loose in initiating a new uprising against British rule in Northern Ireland.

Circumstances gave me this position, 
Put the steering wheel of history in my hands
The barricades are rising in this city 
And the rival groups are taking up their stands.

In a little while the taunting and the shouting 
Will turn to something nastier by far
Bullets will replace the broken bottles, 
Just watch them as they ratchet up the bar.

Once more the IRA will spring to action, 
Once more the cause of freedom to the fore
Another chance for Irish liberation, 
A united land to last for ever more.

And even if we fail in our objective, 
Our heroes and their exploits will be sung
And future generations will revere us, 
When the bell of freedom finally is rung.

Once more the fertile soil of chaos beckons
For revolution’s seed is well prepared
The young are more than willing to come forward
I pray to god that some of them are spared
I pray to god that some of them are spared



Circumstances

This is a somewhat longer version of the Love Theme from Engineering Paradise the Musical
Composed and performed by Andrew Richardson
SINGERS AND SONGWRITERS WANTED TO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS PROJECT
Full details: http://davidgardiner.net/EPOpen.html

Love Theme (longer version)

Music and Vocals by Lily Brooke 
Lyrics: David Gardiner

This version of the song, which I love and think is great, was created by Lily Brooke, whose song Blockade was part of the inspiration for the original: https://youtu.be/3QvzFZELIFM
Unfortunately it wouldn't fit into the stage musical in its current form, since the song occurs in an intimate and seductive scene in which the Girl of the title strolls up the aisle, full of sweetness and false innocence, flirting outrageously with individual men in the audience and finally walking off arm in arm with some soldiers who are seated around a late-night campfire on stage. It's a slow, sultry mood piece, sung to the melody of a lone harmonica or possibly a honky-tonk piano. I'm delighted to say that Dayna Lynn, who lives in British Columbia, Canada, has sent me a version that is perfect for use on the stage. You'll find it here as well. Both versions are brilliant interpretations of my lyrics for which I am extremely grateful. This 'Big Production Number' might work very well as a reprise if the stage version gets the applause that it deserves!

 A Girl Who Gets Around

I‘m a girl who gets around
Every corner of this town
And I know just how to please
These young men from overseas

Or if you’re with the IRA
That is totally okay
For it’s only night-time play
Just a different shade of grey
And I’m a girl who likes to get around

I‘m a girl who gets around
In a very troubled town
Not a Catholic or a Prod
‘Cause I don’t believe in God
Which you may think rather odd

Convent school in sweet Tralee
But the sisters would agree
It just wasn’t right for me
So to here I had to flee
I’m just a girl who likes to get around

I haven’t any politics, don’t cheer for any side
I haven’t any hatred, my heart is open wide
I’m full of love for everyone
In this I take a pride
I’m just a girl who likes to get around

I’m a little like your mother
And a little like a priest,
So tell me what you’ve bottled-up that needs to be released
You can tell the girl that likes to get around

If you’re lonely or unhappy you can always come to me
I can make your burden lighter for a very modest fee
You can tell the girl who likes to get around
Tell the girl who found a way to make her favourite hobby pay
You can tell the girl who likes to get around

A Girl Who Gets Around ('Big Production' version)

Melody, Guitar and Vocals by Rick Hayter.
Lyrics by David Gardiner

This song is used at two different points in the play with slightly different words. It's first sung by Danny's father Dr. Gallagher, expressing his frustration with what he sees as the primitive and superstitious religious beliefs of the people around him, leading to simmering tribal hatreds and occasional outbreaks of murderous violence, and contrasting this with his own scientific rationalist world view. Later the same song is sung by his son expressing his delight at the power of science and engineering to make a difference in the world. The song is a hymn to science and atheism.

Engineering solutions are the answer
To the miseries that human kind surround.
You can always find the way to move things forward
If you’ll only keep your feet upon the ground.

You’ve simply got to state the problem clearly
And adopt an analytic frame of mind.
A decision made in haste will cost you dearly
It’s through reason the solutions you will find.

Nature speaks the language of mathematics
And religions are where lazy people hide.
Electronics, laws of motion, hydrostatics
When you’ve quantified things – then you can decide

Is the world the joke of some capricious being
Or the product of inexorable laws?
When it’s innards we have found new ways of seeing
Will we understand its fundamental cause?
	
Are there reasons underlying every process?
Are there rules that hold the universe in check?
Or are spirits hiding out in every recess?
Has some demon been around to stack the deck?

I see no need of any hidden mover
The world is so much bigger than their god
There’s a universe that’s out there to discover
And I’m the blind man, tapping with his rod.

Engineering Solutions

Melody & Violin: Barbara Korner
Vocals: Rick Hayter
Lyrics: David Gardiner

Danny, the schoolboy protagonist of 'Engineering Paradise the Musical', sings this song immediately after he has completed the last paper in his GCE 'O' levels, an exam that was taken at about 16 in the British education system back in the 1960s, the period in which the story is set. It allowed you to leave school and look for a job, but not to go on to college or University. That required the 'A' level GCE qualification, taken normally at 18. Danny is delighted to be free of examinations for a while and starting the six week summer holiday which is still part of the British system, but he is also anxious about the adult role he will soon be required to take on. He also expresses in the song his unjustified low opinion of his talents and intelligence, unwittingly instilled by his somewhat arrogant and big-headed GP father. Barbara has included an Irish jig in the middle of the song to which Danny dances 'River Dance' fashion before his anxiety about looming adult responsibilities begins to trouble him.

That’s the last examination I’ll be sitting for a while
I wish I could believe that I might go the extra mile
Sail through to University and make my father proud
But I know I’m nothing special, just a face amongst the crowd.

My father says that talent isn’t handed down intact
It’s diluted and diminished when the genome is unpacked
And what’s left is never quite as good as what it might have been
If we hadn’t all been saddled with ‘Regression to the Mean’.

So I never try to kid myself I’ll rise above the pack
I’m aiming at the middle, not completely at the back
I only want to struggle through, avoiding a disgrace
Enough to keep my dignity, enough to save my face

But now it’s summer holidays and freedom of a kind
I can go and seek adventure, take it easy and unwind
I can try to be an adult making choices of my own
Or even find a girlfriend so I needn’t be alone

Growing up is scary and I mustn’t get it wrong
It’s not as if I hadn’t seen it coming all along
But I wish that they had told me what it’s really all about
Is there some elusive secret that I haven’t yet found out?

The Last Examination

Composition, Guitar and Vocals: Rick Hayter
Lyrics: David Gardiner

The protagonist of the story Danny has just had his first sexual experience with Joyce, the girl he met on the ship taking him to the Isle of Man. He believes that he has found the love of his life, Joyce is in fact a bit nore casual about it all but will grow increasingly fond of him as the story goes on. This is Danny's equivalent of 'Thank You', the love song that Joyce later sings to him.

The frightened little boy who came from Belfast
Has grown up in only seven days
The child whose worried eyes were always downcast
Has left behind those awkward childish ways

Like one who has uncovered hidden treasure
The point of my existence now is clear
Happiness exceeding mortal measure
Is mine whenever Joyce is standing near

Will this feeling really stay with me forever?
Is true love as eternal as they say?
Can those poets and those writers who are clever
Really promise it will never pass away?

I know what Joyce would say if I should ask her
She’d tell me not to analyse the dream
Love doesn’t visit so we might unmask her
Accept that things are just the way they seem.

I’ve got to give our love affair a chance
This isn’t just a holiday romance.

Frightened Little Schoolboy

Music, vocals and guitar: Dayna Lynn (https://soundcloud.com/dayna-6533185)
Lyrics: David Gardiner

This is a brilliant 'working version' of the song that we can use on stage. Lily's version, while beautiful, isn't suitable for the scene in which the song occurs. It occurs in an intimate and seductive scene in which the 'Girl' of the title strolls up the aisle, full of sweetness and false innocence, flirting outrageously with individual men in the audience and finally walking off arm in arm with some soldiers who are seated around a late-night campfire on stage. It's a slow, sultry mood piece. Originally I imagined it sung to the melody of a lone harmonica or possibly a honky-tonk piano, but Dayna's guitar version is equally practical. One of the soldiers starts to strum on a guitar, the girl wanders in at the back of the theatre and strolls down the aisle flirting outrageously with the male members of the audience as she sings this song. I think it will be a great scene!

A Girl Who Gets Around

I‘m a girl who gets around
Every corner of this town
And I know just how to please
These young men from overseas

Or if you’re with the IRA
That is totally okay
For it’s only night-time play
Just a different shade of grey
And I’m a girl who likes to get around

I‘m a girl who gets around
In a very troubled town
Not a Catholic or a Prod
‘Cause I don’t believe in God
Which you may think rather odd

Convent school in sweet Tralee
But the sisters would agree
It just wasn’t right for me
So to here I had to flee
I’m just a girl who likes to get around

I haven’t any politics, don’t cheer for any side
I haven’t any hatred, my heart is open wide
I’m full of love for everyone
In this I take a pride
I’m just a girl who likes to get around

I’m a little like your mother
And a little like a priest,
So tell me what you’ve bottled-up that needs to be released
You can tell the girl that likes to get around

If you’re lonely or unhappy you can always come to me
I can make your burden lighter for a very modest fee
You can tell the girl who likes to get around
Tell the girl who found a way to make her favourite hobby pay
You can tell the girl who likes to get around

A Girl Who Gets Around (Stage Version)

Written by Leon Rosselson 
Vocals: Dayna Lynn

The young runaway girl working as a prostitute amongst the soldiers and paramilitaries of Belfast sings this song acapella to end the play. She previously walked up the aisle attempting to seduce male members of the audience and walked off arm in arm with some soldiers around their campfire on the stage. This time she walks down from the stage, again stopping at members of the audience and presenting each of them with a white flower as she sings Leon Rosselson's wonderful anti-war song that carries the message of the ultimate triviality of military history. In a very short time, she tells us through the song, this uprising, which left about 3,500 people dead and countless more seriously injured, will simply be the stuff of boring school history lessons. Nothing of any significance will have changed, but the dead will still be dead and the ruined lives will still be ruined. That was exactly what happened.

History lesson, it's time to remember,
Time to remember the deeds of the great,
Please pay attention, don't let your minds wander,
Daydreams and playtime can wait.

Black the minnows that swarm in the water,
White the butterfly flits in the sun,
Red the blossom and pink the magnolia,
History lesson's begun.

Joan of Arc ended up as a cinder,
Henry VIII did for two of his wives,
Wish I could dive in the pond where the ducks are
Having the time of their lives.

Red the blood on the axe of the headsman,
Black the stake and the bodies that burn,
White the face of the priest and the hangman,
These are the facts you must learn.

Pitt paid a packet to patch out an empire,
Drake bowled the Spaniards out the first ball,
Just want to lie in the sun by the water
Down where the rushes grow tall.

Red the lines of Wellington's army,
White the ensign where Nelson held sway,
Crimson the cavalry Marlborough commanded,
History's heroes are they.

Which scrap of paper began the big bundle?
Which umbrella brought peace in our time?
Questions and answers dissolve in the sunshine,
Wait for the school bell to chime.

Green the gas as it gutters the trenches,
Black the smell of the smoke from a gun,
White the pain of a bombshell exploding,
History lesson's begun.

History lesson, please try to remember,
Time to remember the deeds of the great,
Theirs was the power, the glory, the honour,
They were the chosen of fate.

Black the minnows that swarm in the water,
White the butterfly flits in the sun,
Red the blossom and pink the magnolia,
History lesson is done.

© 1968 Leon Rosselson

History Lesson (sung by Dayna Lynn)

Composition, guitar & harmonica:  Domagoj Magash
Violin: Ben Owen
Vocals: Susan Fidler
Lyrics: David Gardiner

This one is a bit off piste again, nothing to do with Engineering Paradise, just some lyrics of mine turned into a song by the fine musicians listed above. I'm getting quite drawn to writing country music lyrics!

Panning for Gold

I don’t know how to tell my pa 
I’m movin’ out this fall
I’ve only got one life to live, 
This has to be my call

My dad came here to pan for gold
Ain’t never found a thing
The only gold my momma saw 
Was in her wedding ring

This house was built by Pappy’s hands
Before the railroad came
Since working on that railroad 
Pappy’s never been the same

A man needs dreams as well as bread
He always used to say
Those dreams that died with Momma 
On the day she passed away

I know that I’ll be lonesome 
in a city on my own
Seeing only stranger’s faces
After knowing every one.

But what’s there for a girl like me 
In this here one-horse town?
I’ve got to live a little bit
Before I settle down.

I know I’ll miss my Pappy 
And we both will shed a tear
He don’t deserve for me to go
I’d love to have him near

But life is out there waiting
And Pappy once was bold
When he packed his army knapsack 
And went off to pan for gold

Panning For Gold

Composition, guitar and vocals: Rick Hayter
Lyrics: David Gardiner

This song is used twice in the play, with slightly different words, at points when the teenage protagonist Danny is experiencing self doubt and anxiety.

It’s way beyond what I should have to cope with
I don’t know what to say or who to tell
Should I speak at Connor’s trial as a witness
Should I talk to Pedro’s family as well?

What would it change if I should make a statement,
Explain the lead-up to the dark event?
Can anything be learned from how it happened,
That similar disasters might prevent?

Would I be seen as seeking out the limelight
Pretending there was something that I knew?
Would I be making mountains out of mole-hills
My story adding nothing that was new?

I need to talk to someone more impartial
My father’s mind is firmly made up.
I need to get perspective and some distance
To know if I’ve been served a poison cup.

It’s way beyond what I should have to cope with
I don’t know what to say or who to tell
There must be someone wise that I can turn to
With guidance he can offer me as well.

Someone who can help me to unburden
Someone I can trust to never tell…

Way Beyond

Composition: Becky Simpson
Arrangement, Guitar & Vocals: Dayna Lynn
Lyrics: David Gardiner

This song comes at a very pivotal moment in the story. Danny's beautiful and talented young singer/songwriter girlfriend is leaving Belfast to go to a boarding school for young singers and performers in England, and in this song she tells him that although she is going away nothing is going to change between them and they will always be lovers when they meet. She also thanks him for the good times they have had together and for not trying to change her – for tolerating her 'free love' hippie lifestyle. It's a gentle and intimate song directly from the girl to her lover. I see this one as an anthem for the whole of Joyce's 'Flower Power' generation.

Originally given a melody and performed by Becky Simpson for the book launch of the novel 'Engineering Paradise' in 2011, a fragment of Becky's version can also be heard lower down the page, but it is an early rehearsal recording made when we were still working on the song, never intended for public dissemination. The technical quality is not high, and she doesn't sing all of the verses but she does have a rather beautiful voice. That is the only fragment of Becky's version surviving. Dayna however performs the song magnificently.


Thank you for the moments when you walked a while with me
Full of joy and understanding when we gave our love for free
And you never tried to make me what I didn’t want to be.

In a world that’s ever circling round a slowly dying sun
The past alone is constant and can never be undone.
Every living person changes every moment of the day
But the past is always present, it can never go away
And we’ll always be together now, no matter where we stray
.
All the people who have held me help to make me who I am
I remember every gentle touch, the passion and the calm.
We’ll always have these moments that we’ve shared so tenderly
Though we may be separated by a mountain or a sea
We’re a part of one another now – for all eternity.

Ever growing, ever learning, ever striving to be free
To create the man and woman that will soon be you and me.
There’s a world beyond that’s waiting, we’re too young to settle down
It’s our time to find our bearings, test the water, look around
But there’s nothing that can take away the friendship that we’ve found.

There’s no clause of limitation on the love I share with you
It will always be there waiting, ever eager, ever new.
The deepest love we’ll ever find is love without demands
That doesn’t ask for promises or bind with wedding bands
That can celebrate the freedom that the other one commands.

Love that asks for nothing but is given like a song
Love that doesn’t wonder if it’s right or if it’s wrong
Love that doesn’t stifle, doesn’t limit, doesn’t scold
Doesn’t ask for grim assurances or suddenly run cold
Love that never judges, and resentment will not hold.

Thank you for the moments when you walked a while with me
Full of joy and understanding when we gave our love for free
And you never tried to make me what I didn’t want to be.
No you never tried to make me what I didn’t want to be.

Thank You ~ Dayna Lynn

Composition and piano: Andrew Richardson
Vocals: Hjalmar Norden and Claire Flanagan
Lyrics: David Gardiner

The very last piece in the jigsaw of 'Engineering Paradise the Musical'.

These fine musicians have done a magnificent job and given me the EXACT song that I heard in my head. I am eternally grateful.

After three long years and an inestimable amount of help from others I have finally got demo versions of ALL the songs. I can now say that the project is complete: I have the script, the lyrics and the songs. In case anybody doesn't know, this is a new musical set in 1960s Belfast. A love story set against the background of the rise of first the 'Official' and then the 'Provisional' IRA. It's in the Public Domain and any group that wants to can stage it without Performing Rights fees of any kind.

The final song is a duet between the protagonist Danny and the sweet-natured young prostitute who is not named in the script but referred to only as 'The Girl'. Danny's spirits have hit rock bottom, his blunders have led to the death of his current girlfriend and he has disobeyed a direct order from his IRA masters. She tries to cheer him up in the way she knows best.

Danny and the Girl (duet)

I would like to thank all the singers, songwriters and others who helped develop this project over the course of the last three years, most especially Roger Wicks, Andrew Richardson, Dayna Lynn, Rick Hayter, Leon Rosselson, Becky Simpson, Lily Brooke, Barbara Korner, Hjalmar Nordén, Dieselle May, Jean Lui Toudou, James Fraser, William Playle and Claire Flanagan. Apologies to the people I have left out, of whom I fear there are probably many. 

The musical was created as an 'open source' project based on my 2011 novel 'Engineering Paradise' ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Engineering-Paradise-David-Gardiner/095693790X ) in which I was responsible for the script, including the song lyrics, Other kind people turned my words into songs and recorded the demo versions that you will find here.

The complete script with lyrics and scores, which is essentially finished now but may well undergo revision in response to experience gained from stage performances, is free to download from http://davidgardiner.net/Engineering_Paradise_the_Musical.pdf . Printed copies are also available from http://www.lulu.com/shop/david-gardiner/engineering-paradise-the-musical/paperback/product-23152678.html at £4.64 + postage, which is cost price and includes no royalty element.

'Engineering Paradise the Musical' is a Public Domain intellectual property. There is no Performing Rights fee or payment of any kind  required for performing this work

The action takes place in 1960s Belfast, where Roman Catholic Grammar School boy Danny builds a pirate radio transmitter, falls in love, sleepwalks into the IRA and discovers too late the Faustian nature of the bargain that he has made, and the real motives of those he has trusted. The title comes from a Stafford Beer quote:

'The Holocaust has shown us that the creation of hell on earth is just a matter of engineering. The creation of an earthly paradise is an engineering problem also.'
Stafford Beer (1926 – 2002)

The work has a 'folksy' 1960s atmosphere, and  the cast includes teenagers of both genders as well as parts for adults. It is intended for production by small 'amdram' or student theatre groups.  

If you might be interested in staging the work, or contributing to the project in any other way, please email me at:  sirat@davidgardiner.net

Engineering Paradise

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