This piece is from the score of the original stage musical The Right Circles. It is performed by the characters Art and Larry.
Listen to .mp3 sample of The Exercise of Art and Larry from the Demo Recording.
See the The Right Circles post for Demo Recording performance credits.
Lyrics & Book Excerpt
LARRY: Ready for lyrics?
ART: Sure! Pardon my ignorance, but how does one normally go about that?
LARRY: Normally, one spends a great deal of time and effort. But we’re not going to do that.
ART: So?
LARRY: Whatever comes off the top of your head. You start.
ART: Where?
LARRY: Start!
ART:
Making up lyrics
All I know is I need a good rhyme
To please my partner in crime
Hey I did it!
LARRY: Go with it!
ART:
Arthur and Larry
Collaborating on their first show
LARRY:
You sing with gusto
While I will play the piano
ART: Wow, that’s bad.
LARRY: With a little work, it’ll be truly awful! I’m just warming up!
Now, my comrade
Is the time to screw our talents up
ART:
Starting from a clean slate
We can both play God as we create
LARRY: The myth begins! You go first.
ART:
In the beginning
Lotsa Gods
LARRY:
A party of four
ART:
Like couch potatoes
For them existing’s a bore
LARRY:
Eternally starving
For a little fun and excitement
The cosmic kitchen
Becomes a place where they invent
ART:
They get out their cookbook
Looking for a tasty recipe
They flip through the pages
‘Til they stumble on humanity
LARRY:
With their spice rack
They begin to add variety
ART:
Gallons of greed
LARRY:
Add a cup of self-righteousness
ART:
An eye of newt and-
Larry abruptly stops playing.
LARRY: Eye of what?
ART: Newt. “Eye of newt, and toe of frog…”
LARRY: We’re creating life, here. There were no newts yet.
ART: Every good potion’s got eye of newt.
LARRY: All right, I guess. Larry resumes playing.
Pour all the contents
Into a large cast iron crock
ART:
Bring to a boil
You get organic soup stock
LARRY:
Stirring for eons
Elements and junk start to congeal
ART:
Finally something
To their godlike palates did appeal
LARRY:
From the mixture
There emerged a form of life ideal!
ART: But ideal for what?
Gods are sadistic
Playful torture fills them with joy
To them a human’s a toy
LARRY:
All throughout history
People thinking that they’re special
That they’re so brilliant
That they control their own will
ART:
But they’re just puppets
For the four gods who pull all the strings
LARRY:
And if they’re fickle
They can put an end to everything
ART:
Then the quartet
Starts another game with a new pet
LARRY: What do you mean?
ART: When they’re tired of playing with Man, they throw him aside like an old Barbie doll, and they get a new toy. Something else they can give hopes and dreams to, only to dash them on the rocks of reality! Something like… cockroaches.
LARRY: Love it! Very Kafkaesque.
ART: Bugs, destined to rule the world!
LARRY:
God, this is easy
My artistic nightmare has come true!
Creating garbage
ART:
God took seven days, but we’ll take two!
ART & LARRY:
What a sly sting
Art is imitating life askew
That’s the icing
On the cake
ART:
No, better yet the coup
de grace!
LARRY:
Cha cha cha!
© & 
2007, 1994 Mark S. Meritt and Richard Hack