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(crowd applauding)
(rock guitar playing)
Taylor Mac: I was born four years after the Stonewall Riots.
-(applause and music continue) -(fan whistles)
All the songs that we're gonna sing in this decade
were on the jukebox in Stonewall at the time.
I don't actually know if that's true.
(chorus vocalizing)
Who started the Stonewall Riots?
♪ Ooh-ooh... ♪
Taylor: The most fun story is that
Marsha P. Johnson was hanging out at Stonewall.
And the cops come to arrest the queers,
just because you're who you are.
♪ Ooh-ooh... ♪
Taylor: And Marsha took a shot glass.
She threw it against a mirror and it shattered,
and they said,
"It was the shot glass heard 'round the world."
(cheering)
♪ War, children ♪
♪ It's just a shot away ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Ooh, the fire is spreading ♪
♪ On our very streets today ♪
♪ Burning like a red coal carpet ♪
♪ Mad bull has lost its way ♪
♪ War, children ♪
♪ It's just a shot away ♪
♪ War, children ♪
♪ It's just a shot away ♪
♪ ♪
Taylor: The show is about our history as Americans.
That history is in our songs.
(cheering)
Taylor: It's what happens when history is filtered
all through one body.
(song continues as instrumental)
(Taylor inaudible)
Taylor: I love the idea that a queer body
could become a metaphor for America.
♪ Yeahhh! ♪
(cheering and applause)
Taylor: Yeah!
Singing has just always been...
My mom, she sang around the house, you know,
all the time when we were kids.
So it's just been a part of... my life.
And when I was thinking of a form that would best represent
our history,
it just seemed like popular music was the thing
that would tell the story the best way.
So we're gonna do a transition into the next decade right now.
We've been working on this show
for over ten years now.
We took it out on tour as four six-hour shows.
I knew I wanted to do the whole show
as a 24-hour performance,
but I only wanted to do it once.
(harps and horns playing expansive overture)
(drums join in)
(cheering and applause)
(band playing bluesy jazz)
Hello, everybody!
Today, tonight and tomorrow,
we are making a 24-decade history
of popular music.
(cheering and applause continue)
Taylor: I didn't know if I could do it.
I would be singing basically nonstop for 24 hours.
(band playing "Yankee Doodle Dandy")
♪ Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a pony ♪
♪ Stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni ♪
♪ Yankee Doodle keep it up ♪
♪ Yankee Doodle dandy! ♪
♪ Mind the music and the steps ♪
♪ And with the girls be handy ♪
I was dreading having to start our show with this decade
because most of the music that has survived
is patriotic music from the American Revolutionary War.
And maybe you can tell from the way I'm dressed,
I'm not exactly an unironic patriot.
(laughter)
♪ Father and I went down to camp ♪
♪ Along with Captain Gooding ♪
♪ And there we saw the men and boys ♪
♪ As thick as hasty pudding ♪
♪ Yankee Doodle keep it up ♪
♪ Yankee Doodle dandy! ♪
♪ Mind the music and the steps ♪
♪ And with the girls be handy ♪
♪ And there we saw a great big gun ♪
(laughter)
♪ As large as a log of maple ♪
♪ And every time they shoot it off ♪
♪ It takes a horn of powder ♪
♪ And makes a noise like father's gun... ♪
Uh-oh, that's sad.
(laughter)
♪ ...only a nation louder ♪
♪ It scared me, so I hooked it off ♪
♪ Nor stopped as I remember ♪
♪ Nor turned about till I got home ♪
♪ Locked up in mother's chamber ♪
This is the song I'm supposed to feel patriotic about?
A song that makes fun of effeminate men?
But then I did a little research
and it turns out that this song was a British song.
The British wrote it to make fun of Americans
'cause they said we were effeminate,
which is really saying something coming from the British.
(laughter)
Not only were we effeminate,
they said we had no fashion sense...
(gasps)
...which is kind of true.
But then what happened was the Americans won a battle
and we pointed our bayonets at them and we made them dance
and sing "Yankee Doodle Dandy" over and over and over again.
And that's how it became an American song.
Dandy revenge!
(laughter and applause)
(dramatic piano music playing)
Taylor: Please welcome the Dandy Minions, all through the house.
They're here to perform random acts of fabulousness.
(music continues)
Niegel Smith: Taylor was like, "Look, I'm looking for a co-director.
"I'm working on a 24-hour performance art concert,
which is a radical fairy realness ritual." (chuckles)
It is a radical
fairy realness ritual sacrifice!
The gathering, the event, that is the ritual.
The audience is the sacrifice.
We didn't want to be the only ones dressed up this evening,
so we brought some drag, and the dandies are going
to pass that drag out to you all right now.
(excited cheering)
Niegel: It's a ritual that asks us to move closer
to our queerness,
and to practice empathy,
and most importantly, I think, practice joy
and exuberance and maximalism.
-Photographer: Hey, ready? -(disco music playing)
-(crew laughing) -Machine Dazzle: Supermodel!
Taylor: A lot of people would say,
"Have you ever thought about making traditional work?
I don't know, a-a kitchen sink drama with a couch?"
And I always thought, well, the Ancient Greeks
wore platform high-heel shoes when they would perform,
and they had masks on,
and sometimes when I'm in my drag, I just feel classical.
(disco music continues)
Taylor: The project started with the idea of making a show
that was a, a metaphorical representation of the AIDS epidemic,
specifically about how communities build themselves
because they're being torn apart.
Erin Hill (singing): ♪ Fare thee well ♪
♪ My own true love ♪
(cheering)
♪ Farewell ♪
♪ For a while ♪
♪ I'm going ♪
♪ Away ♪
♪ But I'll ♪
♪ Be back ♪
Taylor: We start with 24 musicians on stage,
and then every hour we lose a musician.
♪ Can't you see ♪
♪ That lonesome dove ♪
♪ That lonesome dove... ♪
Taylor: And at the start of the show,
we have all the sound,
and slowly it diminishes,
diminishes, diminishes.
Taylor and Erin: ♪ He's weeping for ♪
♪ His own true love ♪
The concept came from the AIDS epidemic,
that...
you fall in love and then somebody's gone.
♪ Come he back ♪
♪ My own true love ♪
♪ Come back and stay a while ♪
♪ If I had a friend ♪
♪ In all the earth ♪
♪ You've been ♪
♪ A friend to me ♪
Machine and I are going to change!
Bring down the screen.
(horns blowing, choir vocalizing)
Machine: When Taylor first came to me
and said we were gonna do this 24-decade show,
I got totally inspired.
I was like, "Oh, my God, I get to make 24, like,
historical, like, period costumes, but my way."
So this is Crazy Jane.
She lives in a whisky barrel.
She has a toothbrush.
She has her dildo.
She has everything that she needs. She's crazy.
Taylor: I'd never tell Machine what to do.
-Machine: You're crazy, girl. -Crazy, Crazy Jane.
Taylor: I'll say, "This is what the decade's about.
I'm gonna sing songs that were popular in pubs in 1796."
That's all I tell him, and then he's like,
"Okay, it's in pubs and they're pub songs."
So then he makes me a headdress of corks...
(laughs) ...right?
Um, corks all popping-- he puts them on little things
so it looks like they're popping out of my head.
He's an artist.
I'm not gonna tell an artist to change their art.
-We're good. Thank you. -All right.
Taylor: Whatever he gives me, I wear.
(band playing risqué ballad)
Taylor: We were drinkers, we were such big drinkers.
The pub was a community center.
There wasn't clean water so we had to drink.
We're gonna pass out some beer to the drinkers
and ping-pong balls to the non-drinkers.
The theater can be so uptight, and there's so many rules, and don't talk,
and don't express yourself from the audience,
and it's-- you're just there to listen
and to a-appropriately clap and, you know,
appropriately laugh at the right places.
And it was just saying, it's okay for you to be chaotic in this space.
(risqué music continues)
Now, you're gonna negotiate with your partner
which one of you during the next verse
is gonna spit their ping-pong ball into the other person's mouth.
(laughter, woman exclaims)
And, drinkers, just sit back and drink.
(cheering)
American Revolutionary War just happened.
They've been living under the system of oppression.
It's a little bit like a kid in high school's
living under the thumb of his parents,
strict rules and stuff.
Goes to college for the first time and what does he do?
He turns America into a frat party.
(gargling musically)
-(crowd cheering) -("Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes" begins playing)
♪ ...and I'll not ask for wine ♪
♪ The thirst that from the soul doth rise... ♪
I think a temperance choir just walked into our pub,
and they're trying to ruin all our fun.
♪ I sent thee late a rosy wreath... ♪
Taylor: That decade is so much about
my own life in the, in the club world
and coming from the theater.
(band playing "Crazy Jane")
(cheering)
Taylor: When I got out of acting school,
I found that I couldn't even get an audition.
And I said, "Okay, well, where can I go where they'll just
let anyone into the room?"
And it turned out it was the clubs in New York City.
♪ Why, fair maid in every feature ♪
♪ There's such signs of fear express? ♪
♪ Does this wandering ♪
♪ Wretched creature ♪
♪ With such terror ♪
♪ Fill thy breast? ♪
♪ Do my brazen looks ♪
♪ Alarm thee? ♪
♪ Trust me, sweet ♪
♪ Thy fears are vain ♪
♪ Not for kingdoms ♪
♪ Would I harm thee ♪
♪ Well, I'm not some Crazy Jane ♪
Taylor: I started showing up to the clubs,
dressed up in my version of drag at the time, and...
I'd say, "Can I do a number?"
And they'd just, "Sure," you know.
♪ I'm Crazy Jane ♪
Taylor: I'm singing a song and somebody's giving somebody
a blow job right there in the audience.
So, I would learn these techniques on how
to steal back the... the story. (laughs)
♪ ♪
♪ While each passerby ♪
♪ In pity ♪
♪ Cries, "God help thee" ♪
♪ "Crazy Jane" ♪
♪ Cries, "God help thee" ♪
♪ "Crazy Jane" ♪
(cheering)
I cut my teeth in the clubs in New York City.
The Cock, the Slide and the Hole, in that order.
(laughter)
When you cut your teeth in the clubs
and then you try to work in the theater
and stuff, ah, ah, it's a long road.
I used to only get booked in, um, in theaters
when there was a festival going on with a, a caveat in the title.
I was at Yale performing one time
in a, in a festival there.
They called it the "No Boundaries Festival."
(laughter)
Which made me really nervous because I have boundaries.
(laughter and applause)
One time at The Cock I saw a woman,
she pulled a chicken leg out of her vagina.
-She ate it... -(audience members gasp)
...and she threw it into the audience.
(shocked laughter)
Then...
she pulled another chicken leg...
(shocked laughter)
...out of her vagina.
She ate it and she threw it into the audience.
(groans and laughter)
Then...
(gasps and laughter)
...she pulled the rest of the chicken...
-(shocked laughter) -...I kid you not...
...out of her vagina.
She ate it and she threw it into the audience.
(groans and laughter)
And I thought two things when I saw that performance.
Only two.
The first thing I thought was, "She's full."
(laughter)
And the second thing I thought was,
"She has no boundaries."
Audience Member: Whoo!
I actually thought three things.
The third thing was, "Taylor,
you're just putting on eyeliner."
(laughter)
Maybe you've noticed this isn't like a regular concert.
I call this a performance art concert.
What does that mean?
At a regular concert, if you don't laugh
and enjoy every single moment, cry all in the right places,
then the artist has failed you.
But in a performance art concert,
you can-- you can love it or you can hate it.
You can be bored out of your mind.
You can despise me.
You can hate everything I'm asking you to do.
You can be annoyed, and I still will have succeeded.
(cheering)
It is the genius of performance art,
there is no failure.
(cheering)
Gold... The gold goes away...
just a little bit.
Machine: This is a beautiful opulence,
just for the sake of opulence, for the sake of beauty,
for the sake of...
effeminism.
-And it's a reveal too. -It's a reveal, like when--
Because the audience has been blindfolded for an hour,
so we want them to concentrate on their other senses for a while.
There's multiple reasons, but one is because
they've been staring at the stage for four hours.
And I thought, let's let them focus on different senses.
And I wanted this because the audience is blind,
I wanted this to be the most beautiful, most opulent costume
that they don't get to see during the show.
Yeah. (laughs)
That's what I love about it.
(piano playing "Coal Black Rose")
My job is to surprise the audience enough
that it can push them out of their patterns
and, um, out of the current mood that they're in
so that they're-- they continue to dig in
and continue to consider.
How can we get everybody to ask questions in the audience
about the moment,
rather than, "Ah, yes. I understand that moment"?
♪ Oh, me Rosie ♪
♪ Coal black Rose ♪
♪ Oh, me Rosie ♪
♪ Coal black Rose ♪
♪ Plays on the banjo all night long ♪
♪ Then she sings her Southern song ♪
♪ Oh, me Rosie ♪
♪ Coal black Rose ♪
♪ Oh, me Rosie ♪
♪ Coal black Rose ♪
♪ Her bangles and her beads ♪
♪ They jingle all night ♪
♪ They never stop ♪
♪ Till the morning light ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Oh, me Rosie ♪
♪ Coal black Rose ♪
♪ Oh, me Rosie ♪
♪ Coal black Rose ♪
♪ One more round then heave her dry ♪
♪ Come on, Jack Tout ♪
♪ You're not that shy ♪
♪ Oh, me Rosie ♪
♪ Coal black Rose ♪
♪ Oh, me Rosie ♪
♪ Coal black Rose ♪
♪ Oh, me Rosie ♪
♪ Coal black Rose ♪
♪ Oh, me Rosie ♪
♪ Coal black Rose ♪
♪ ♪
(song ends)
The-- Don't applaud that song.
Don't applaud it, don't applaud it.
That is a sea shanty adaptation of the very first minstrel song.
Um...
(sighs)
What is happening, and may-maybe you didn't hear the lyric,
uh, there's this lyric i-in the song called, ah, it goes,
"One more round then heave her dry,
come on, Jack Tout, you're not that shy."
And what is happening is the men on the boat,
they are hoisting up a sail
and they're trying to build their community
by hoisting up the sail together,
with the idea that when they get their job done,
they can go into town and gang rape a slave,
a woman who is enslaved.
(clicks tongue)
(sighs)
People love things that build communities, you know?
And they never want to get rid of anything that builds a community.
But...
sometimes you have to acknowledge
that the things that have built the community,
um, the foundation for them is evil.
And that it's not serving you
and that you have to tear it down
and start from scratch.
You can take off your blindfolds now.
And these are the songs that are part of our DNA
passed down through us all.
We teach children these songs and they sing them.
That's the foundation of, of our, our learning.
♪ A-B-C-D ♪
♪ E-F-G ♪
I'd say, "What is this particular hour of the show going to be about?"
and go and hunt for songs that were popular around the time.
♪ Now I know ♪
♪ My ♪
♪ ABCs ♪
(cheering and applause)
(childlike voice) ♪ Next time won't you sing ♪
♪ With me? ♪
(cheering)
(applause)
(flutes playing)
In the Indian Removal Act, we're singing children's songs.
I wanted Taylor's look to have a playful element to it.
So it's kind of in the likeness of a, like a nanny,
a caretaker of the children,
or it could be the mother.
I wanted whimsy for the sake of the children,
but I wanted something disturbing and sad
as a representation of the extermination
of the Indians.
Taylor: We tell the story of the Cherokee people
who are on the Trail of Tears.
Andrew Jackson had this agenda to get rid
of all the Native Americans. He wanted genocide.
Let's sing a bunch of children's songs on the Trail of Tears
in order to distract you from what's going on.
He forced the Cherokee to go on this trek from Georgia to Oklahoma.
And thousands died.
(band plays "Rove Riley Rove")
♪ I went up on a mountain ♪
♪ Gave my horn a blow ♪
♪ I think I hear my one true love say ♪
♪ "Yonder comes my beau" ♪
♪ Rove, Riley, Rove ♪
♪ Rove, Riley, poor boy ♪
♪ Got nowhere to go ♪
♪ Mama gave me meat ♪
♪ And the Christians give me bread ♪
♪ The pretty girl gave me a kiss ♪
♪ It just about knocks me dead ♪
♪ Rove, Riley, Rove ♪
♪ Rove, Riley, poor boy got nowhere to go ♪
♪ An opossum is a pretty thing ♪
♪ It rambles in the dark ♪
♪ The only time you know he's 'round ♪
♪ Is when you hear that Ranger bark ♪
♪ Rove, Riley, Rove ♪
♪ Rove, Riley, poor boy ♪
♪ Got nowhere to go ♪
And I don't know if this lyric is about the Trail of Tears,
but I do know they had to go from Georgia
through Arkansas to get to Oklahoma.
♪ I went down to Georgia ♪
♪ And what do you think I saw? ♪
♪ A thousand feet pushing a cart ♪
♪ All the way through Arkansas ♪
♪ Rove, Riley, Rove ♪
♪ Rove, Riley, poor boy ♪
♪ Got nowhere to go ♪
(cheering and applause)
Matt Ray: I came up as a jazz musician,
and I brought some of those people into the 24-hour show,
into Taylor's world.
Taylor would send me a list of songs.
"Here's 30 songs that happened in this ten-year period.
Which of these songs are interesting?"
And trying to storytell out of that.
We're going to sing the oddest abolitionist song for you now ever written.
♪ Oh, the Black man's only made for work ♪
(laughter)
♪ The Southern people say ♪
♪ But the Black man's very willing ♪
♪ And he wants to have his pay ♪
♪ So he swims across the river ♪
♪ And he flies across the plain ♪
♪ But the Northern people catch him ♪
♪ And they place him back in chains ♪
Matt: What if we tried it in three-four time?
What if we tried it as a ballad and then it gets fast?
And it was always about trying to find out how we could exhume
the meaning of the song, the deeper meaning of the song,
and the lyrics be heard in a new way.
(upbeat music playing "Ghost of Uncle Tom")
♪ Well, the Black man's only made for work ♪
♪ The Southern people say ♪
♪ And the Black man's very willing ♪
♪ But he wants to have his pay ♪
♪ So he swims across the river ♪
♪ And he flies across the plain ♪
♪ And the Northern people catch him ♪
♪ But they place him back in chains ♪
♪ Knock knock knock ♪
♪ ♪
♪ When the hour of midnight comes ♪
♪ Who's that a-knocking? ♪
♪ It's the ghost of Uncle Tom ♪
-♪ Who is that knocking? ♪ -♪ It's the ghost of Uncle Tom ♪
-♪ He's always knocking ♪ -♪ It's the ghost of Uncle Tom ♪
♪ He's always knocking ♪
Maybe you noticed, this is my subjective take on history.
(laughter)
I'm not really interested in the show being about history
as much as I'm interested in it being about all of us in this room
have a lot of history on our backs
and we're trying to figure out what to do with it.
(cheering)
(smooth jazz playing)
Machine: In this decade, we champion Walt Whitman
adorned with gay male erotica,
flowers and potato chip bags.
The reason for the erotica is, Walt Whitman,
famous queer writer, also wrote erotica.
The reason for the potato chip bags is,
apparently potato chips were invented during that decade too.
♪ Weep no more, my ladies ♪
♪ Weep no more today ♪
♪ We will sing a song for the old Kentucky home ♪
♪ For the old Kentucky home ♪
♪ Far away ♪
♪ Corn tops ripe on the little cabin floor ♪
♪ All merry, all happy and bright ♪
♪ The time has come when the darkies all must part ♪
(discordant music plays, fades)
♪ The time has come ♪
♪ When the darkies all must part ♪
♪ Oh, my old Kentucky home ♪
♪ Good night ♪
This is the state song of Kentucky,
a minstrel song.
And they didn't know that until the 1980s,
so they changed the word "darkies" to "people."
They couldn't get rid of the song.
The song was written by Stephen Foster.
He is considered the father of American song.
And people say, "Oh, you can't be too hard on Stephen Foster,
he was a product of his time,"
but other people were a product of Stephen Foster's time.
You know, Sojourner Truth, uh, Frederick Douglass,
and one of the great radicals of all time,
so radical he's still radical to this very day, Walt Whitman.
(audience cheers)
Walt Whitman said that his poems were songs.
So I think Walt Whitman should be the father of American song.
(cheering)
So what I thought we would do is to have an epic smackdown.
-In this corner... -(band playing fanfare)
...the sentimentalist minstrel songwriting Stephen Foster.
In this corner,
the self-proclaimed no-sentimentalist,
radical fairy poet Walt Whitman.
Who will win the title of father of American song?
-You decide. -(fanfare ends)
-(cheering) -All right.
You, sir, with the scarf and the popcorn right there?
Yeah. Come up here. Come up here.
Gorgeous. You're going to be Stephen Foster.
I'm gonna play Walt Whitman.
But I'm gonna sing your songs
'cause you don't know them, okay?
Stephen Foster.
♪ The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home ♪
♪ The young folks, they're rolling on the floor ♪
♪ We will sing a song for our old Kentucky home ♪
♪ Keep those hard times away from my door ♪
Walt Whitman.
"Native moments when you come upon me...
"Oh, you're here now.
"Give me now libidinous joys only.
"Give me life, coarse and rank.
"Give me the drench of my passions.
"Today, I consort with nature's darlings.
"Tonight, too, I am for those who believe in loose delights.
I share the midnight orgies of young men."
-(cheering) -Ah.
And the historians will all tell you
"orgy" meant "party" back then, you know?
They do, do whatever they can to convince you that no--
there was no queerness. You know, they,
"Orgy meant party back then."
No! It meant orgy.
(laughter)
"No, it meant party."
Yes, but what happens at a party, right?
A drinky-drinky, a smokey-smokey, and pretty soon...
(gurgling)
-(laughter) -Audience Member 1: Whoo!
At least that's been my experience.
Audience Member 2: Whoo!
Stephen Foster.
(band playing "Camptown Ladies")
♪ Camptown ladies sing that song ♪
♪ Doo-dah! Doo-dah! ♪
♪ Camptown racetrack five miles long ♪
♪ All the doo-dah day! ♪
♪ Gonna run all night! ♪
♪ Gonna run all day! ♪
♪ I'll bet my money on a bob-tail nag ♪
♪ Somebody bet on the bay! ♪
Walt Whitman.
"Listen. I will be honest with you.
"I do not offer old, smooth prizes
but offer rough, new prizes."
I love that. That's how I feel about my art.
I don't offer you old, old smooth prizes.
I offer you rough, new prizes.
If you came to this show expecting a polished show,
you came to the wrong show girl.
(cheering)
Yeah. And you came to the wrong show comma girl.
-(laughter) -But Stephen Foster says,
"Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute."
-(mouthing words) -Uh, w-w-wait a minute.
(laughter and applause)
"This epic smackdown is rigged."
This epic smackdown is rigged!
(laughs)
What else would I say?
Amazing.
"Everybody knows I'm the father of American song."
(laughing) Everybody knows I'm the father...
(audience laughing)
...of American song.
-"And to prove it..." -And to prove it...
"...I'm gonna release my secret weapon."
...I'm gonna release my secret weapon.
(laughter)
"A song so insidious..."
A song so...
-"Insidious." -...insidious... (laughs)
-"...the minute you hear it..." -...the minute you hear it...
"...you're not gonna get it out of your head."
...you're not gonna get it out of your head.
"You're gonna go home and you're gonna try to sleep, but you're not gonna be able to sleep
because it's gonna go around and around in your head on an endless loop
until you go mad, I tell you, mad!"
(laughing)
Uh... (chuckles)
English was my second language.
(laughter and applause)
(Taylor humming)
Machine: You know, all the school bands' marching uniforms,
they're all actually modeled
off of the Civil War soldier outfits.
And I read somewhere that hotdogs
were invented during this time from German immigrants,
selling their sausages inside of buns on the street.
Is it blood or is it ketchup? You get to decide.
Hot dogs. Hot dog!
-Spins! We like spins! -(show music playing)
Taylor: It's drag as metaphor
as opposed to drag as impersonation.
I'm never trying to look like Marlene Dietrich.
It's a metaphor for an idea or a specific time.
It's the Civil War, and I'm gonna divide you in half.
This side of the audience, you're going to be the Union soldiers.
-(cheering) -This side of the audience,
you are going to be the Confederate soldiers.
-(booing) -It's not personal.
I don't know you. You're not playing you.
You're playing the part I assign you.
Now, everybody stand. Everybody, everybody.
We're going to have our very first battle.
This one is gonna be a slow-motion fight.
And you're gonna slow-motion fight with each other, people around you.
And I want it dirty: I want it like g-groin punches
and kicks and strangulation and asshole slaps.
I don't like calling them "bitch slaps," asshole slaps.
Just make it dirty and disgusting and cruel in slow motion.
It's gonna go on a lot longer than you're gonna want it to.
(band playing "The Fall of Charleston")
♪ With a whack, rowdy-dow ♪
♪ A hunky boy is a Yankee soldier ♪
♪ Whack, rowdy-dow ♪
♪ Invincible is he! ♪
(rollicking jazz playing)
(music slows)
(elongated) Keeeeep going in sloooow motion.
I'm gonna kick you dirty Confederate soldierssssss.
I'm gonna punch you in the faaaaaace.
I'm gonna strangle youuuu...
Taylor: I'm interested in what happens
when the audience has to make a commitment to something.
(contemplative piano music playing)
Taylor: It stops being just a party game.
It becomes something, um...
something deeper.
(contemplative music continues)
Six hundred thousand people died in the Civil War.
Representing one of those 600,000
is our mandolin player, Ethan.
Come on down, Ethan.
Every hour we lose a musician.
♪ The old church bell will peal with joy ♪
♪ Hurrah, hurrah! ♪
♪ To welcome home our darling boy ♪
♪ Hurrah, hurrah! ♪
♪ The village lads and lassies say ♪
♪ With roses they all stray away ♪
♪ And we'll all feel gay ♪
♪ When Johnny comes marching home ♪
We lost Johnny in the war.
So Mother, after the war,
wants to have
a big family dinner.
She wants us all to be together and enjoy ourselves,
so this is Reconstruction, which means dinner.
(laughter)
So, um, I want you guys
to jam out a little bit 'cause I'm gonna go pee.
(playing "Down by the Riverside")
♪ Oh, I'm gonna lay down ♪
♪ My sword and shield ♪
♪ Down by the riverside ♪
♪ I'm gonna lay down ♪
♪ My sword and shield ♪
♪ Down by the riverside ♪
♪ I ain't gonna study war no more ♪
Other inventions of this time were the toilet paper rolls,
so I have these empty toilet paper rolls,
but also dynamite is another invention of the time.
So I thought that was kind of a nice combination, toilet paper and dynamite.
-♪ I ain't gonna ♪ -♪ Study war no more ♪
♪ Oh, yeah, I don't want to, you can't make me ♪
-♪ Whoa-oh-oh ♪ -♪ No-oh-oh ♪
-♪ I ain't gonna ♪ -♪ Study war no more ♪
♪ Oh, yeah, I ain't gonna study war ♪
♪ No more ♪
(tempo increases, syncopation added)
♪ I ain't gonna study war no more ♪
(jazzy finish, tempo slowing)
♪ Yeah-eah ♪
(cheering and applause)
Taylor: We bring out all these tables and we do
a dinner theater production of the Mikado.
(electronic music playing)
We call it the Marskado.
(lilting music, nasal horns blowing)
(nasal voices)
Niegel: The Gilbert and Sullivan operetta,
popular music.
Deeply problematic. (chuckles)
Uh, because the history of English and white folks
putting on yellow face,
putting on a culture that is not theirs,
uh, in-in order to tell a story about themselves.
What?
And so we couldn't do that.
And I said, "Well, what's something that we could put on?"
So we went to Mars.
Now, on Mars, in this strange coinky-dink
that mirrors the Gilded Age in America,
two percent of the population owned about 40% of the entire wealth of the nation,
and 40% of the country had zero wealth.
(in nasal distorted voice)
(audience laughs)
♪ Tit-willow, tit-willow ♪
♪ Tit-willow ♪
Just do that over and over.
(high-pitched nasal voice) ♪ Tit-willow, tit-willow ♪
♪ Tit-willow ♪
♪ Tit-willow, tit-willow ♪
(audience laughs)
(chuckles) ♪ Tit-willow ♪
♪ Tit-willow, tit-willow... ♪
(audience laughing)
♪ Tit-willow, tit-willow ♪
♪ Tit-willow ♪
♪ Tit-willow, tit-willow ♪
♪ Tit-willow ♪
(laughter)
(lower pitch, slower) ♪ Tit-willow ♪
♪ Tit-willow, tit-willow ♪
(softly) ♪ Tit-willow, tit-willow ♪
♪ Tit-willow ♪
(laughter and applause)
♪ Tit-willow ♪
♪ Tit-willow, tit-willow ♪
♪ Tit-willow ♪
Together: ♪ Tit-willow ♪
♪ Tit-willow... ♪
♪ Tit-willow ♪
(cheering and applause)
Well, let me tell ya, dinner's over.
(bluesy jazz playing)
Anastasia Durasova: The makeup kind of takes over.
There is, uh, less control, through the movement,
through the sweat, through the tears.
-(both laughing) -It transforms itself,
uh, without my control, at least.
Taylor: Well, it was part of the concept of the drag in the beginning was,
it's never homogenous.
You can't really say that, that it's one thing.
It's, it's giving you masculine and femininity at the same time.
It's, um, giving you mess and order at the same time
and beauty and, um...
and just real grotesquery...
(laughs) ...all happening at the same time.
We have never done more than 12 decades before.
Whew!
-(chuckles) -(band playing bluesy jazz)
So we are about to venture
into uncharted territory.
(cheering)
♪ ♪
-(music stops) -Taylor: Part of the art was that the audience
would be with us for 24 hours as well.
Most of the profound experiences in my life have happened
as a result of giving more time to the, to the event,
or, um, or the art, or, I mean, weddings...
that last all day long.
You know, those are things that you remember.
Um, uh, trips to various places
last weeks, or at least a few days.
So these are things that you're welcoming in
a certain amount of surprise and a, a different way
of looking at the world, uh, when you,
uh, when you commit to them. So I just want,
I've always wanted theater to kind of do the same thing.
(martial music playing)
It's World War I.
(band playing "Keep the Home Fires Burning")
♪ They were summoned from the hillside ♪
♪ They were called in from the glen ♪
♪ And the country found them ready ♪
♪ At the stirring call ♪
♪ For men ♪
♪ There's a silver lining ♪
♪ In the dark clouds shining ♪
♪ Turn the dark cloud inside out ♪
♪ Till the boys come home ♪
(drums tattooing)
All the women in the audience, self-proclaimed women,
I would like you to sing this song.
We have the lyrics.
♪ Keep the home fires ♪
♪ Burning ♪
♪ While your hearts are yearning ♪
♪ Though your lads are far away ♪
♪ They dream of home ♪
♪ There's a silver lining ♪
♪ In the dark clouds shining ♪
♪ Turn the dark cloud inside out ♪
♪ Till the boys come home ♪
-(cheering) -(band playing "Happy Days Are Here Again")
♪ Happy days are here again ♪
♪ The skies above are clear again ♪
♪ So let's sing a song of cheer again ♪
♪ Happy days are here again ♪
This song is like a person at a party trying to force their fun on you.
(laughter)
Sixteen and a half million people
died in World War I,
and people are singing a song called
"Happy Days Are Here Again."
Here we go! ♪ Happy days... ♪
(song continues, muted)
♪ ...the skies above are clear again ♪
♪ So let's sing a song... ♪
(piano playing boogie-woogie)
Everybody who is over 60, stand please.
(cheering)
Is anyone over 80?
(cheering louder)
Come to the stage.
Raise your hand if you're under...
20.
Great, come up on stage.
(cheering)
You are going to teach this person how to dance.
She's gonna copy everything you do, okay?
All right? Ready?
Here we go.
♪ The old folks are doing it ♪
♪ The young folk too ♪
♪ But the old folks teach the young ones what to do ♪
♪ They shake that thing ♪
♪ Oh, they shake that thing ♪
♪ They're getting sick and tired ♪
♪ Of telling you to shake your thing ♪
Oh, my God, yes.
Oh, my God.
-Wow, okay. -(audience cheering)
So everyone over 50, stand up.
Everyone over 50? Okay.
Now, everybody who is sitting, clock someone who's standing,
and in this next musical section, you're going to copy their moves.
Now, we live in an ageist culture,
so if you don't actually look at the person and try to do what they're doing,
you're being ageist, all right?
And here we go!
♪ Well, Grandpapa Johnson, he grabs sister Kate ♪
♪ And he shook her just like you shake jelly on a plate ♪
♪ He shook that thing ♪
♪ He's getting sick and tired ♪
♪ Of telling you to shake your thing ♪
♪ With music like this ♪
♪ Why wouldn't you wanna shake ♪
♪ Your thing? ♪
(band playing dramatic finish)
(cheering and applause fades)
Yeah. Gooey.
-Yes, gooey good. -(snarling) Yeah, yeah...
Taylor: It's the Great Depression,
and one of the ways
we survive poverty-induced depression
is just to get together and admit that it's happening.
(playing "I Ain't Got No Home/ Dust Won't Kill Me")
♪ I ain't got no home ♪
♪ I'm just a-wanderin' 'round ♪
♪ I'm a wanderin' worker ♪
♪ And I go from town to town ♪
♪ Police, they make it hard for me ♪
♪ Wherever I may go ♪
♪ I ain't got no home ♪
♪ In this world anymore ♪
♪ That old dust storm ♪
♪ Killed my baby ♪
♪ But it won't kill me, Lord ♪
♪ It won't kill me ♪
♪ That old dust storm ♪
♪ It killed my family ♪
♪ But it won't kill me, Lord ♪
♪ It won't kill me ♪
♪ I'm farmin' on the shares ♪
♪ And always I am poor ♪
♪ And all my crops they go ♪
♪ Into the banker's door ♪
♪ And my wife took down and died ♪
♪ Upon the cabin floor ♪
♪ I ain't got no home ♪
♪ In this world anymore ♪
♪ That old landlord ♪
♪ He got my homestead ♪
♪ But he won't get me, Lord ♪
♪ He won't get me ♪
♪ That old pawn shop ♪
♪ Might get my furniture ♪
♪ But it won't get me, Lord ♪
♪ It won't get me ♪
♪ As I travel 'round ♪
♪ It's very plain to see ♪
♪ That this whole world's a great ♪
♪ And a funny place to be ♪
♪ Where the gamblin' man gets rich ♪
♪ And the workin' man is poor ♪
♪ I ain't got no home ♪
♪ In this world anymore ♪
(fiddle playing Western music)
♪ ♪
Taylor: My father was born in Abilene, Texas.
(somber, syncopated jazz playing)
He died when I was four.
So we're going to sing this song. Uh...
I just want to point out that I decided to sing
one of the hardest popular songs in the history of popular songs
at hour, what is it, 16?
-Matt: 16, yeah, 17. -Something like that. Yeah.
A-And the reason that I decided to do it
is because this song traumatized me as a child,
and I thought, "Well, only way to get over that trauma is to own it."
This was my dad's favorite song.
(chuckles) I don't know if that's true, but that's what I was told.
♪ I wonder what he'll think of me ♪
♪ I bet he'll call me ♪
♪ The "old man" ♪
♪ I bet he'll think ♪
♪ I can lick every other fella's father ♪
♪♪ Well, I can ♪
♪ I bet that he'll turn out to be ♪
♪ The spittin' image of his dad ♪
♪ But he'll have more common sense ♪
♪ Than his puddin'-headed father ♪
♪ Ever had! ♪
♪ Bill ♪
♪ My boy Bill ♪
♪ I will see that he's named after me ♪
♪ I will ♪
♪ My boy Bill ♪
♪ He'll be tall and as tough as a tree ♪
♪ Will Bill ♪
♪ Like a tree he'll grow with his head held high ♪
♪ And his feet planted firm on the ground ♪
♪ And you won't see nobody dare ♪
♪ To try to boss him ♪
♪ Or toss him around! ♪
♪ No flat bottom, flabby face, pot-bellied ♪
♪ Baggy-eyed bastard will boss him around ♪
Taylor: I grew up with this mythology,
I'm not supposed to be the way I am.
That's-- I'm supposed to be like Bill,
like his ideal version of, of what a son would be is what I'm supposed to be.
(contemplative horns blowing)
Oh, no...
What if he is a girl?
(gasps)
(groans)
Oh, Bill, Bill!
Now, what can I do f-- What can I do for her?
What can I do with her?
♪ You can have fun with a son ♪
♪ But you gotta be a father ♪
♪ To a girl ♪
♪ My little girl ♪
(relentless music playing)
♪ I gotta get ready ♪
♪ Before she comes ♪
♪ I got to make certain ♪
♪ That she won't be dragged ♪
♪ Through the slums with a lot of bums ♪
♪ Like me ♪
♪ She's gotta be sheltered ♪
♪ And fed and dressed ♪
♪ In the best that money can buy ♪
♪ I never knew how ♪
♪ To get money ♪
♪ But I'll try! ♪
♪ By God, I'll try! ♪
♪ I'll go out and make it ♪
♪ Or steal it ♪
♪ Or take it ♪
♪ Or ♪
♪ Die! ♪
(cheering and applause)
Machine: I made this Marilyn Monroe kind of wig
out of 3D glasses and, um, the big, almost like poodle-esque kind of skirt,
lots of white picket fences, and all of the houses that were the same.
McDonald's, the rise of the suburbs,
uh, you know, complete with a marabou white picket fence, but not before the heels.
-(Latin rhythm playing) -Machine: Gorgeous. Yes!
Yes. Beautiful.
Stunning. Stunning.
It's so good.
Perfect.
Yes. Yes.
What about fingers in mouth?
Oh, my gosh, she just came from the drive-through.
She can't wait to go home for her TV dinner.
Love, love, love.
Taylor: I grew up in Stockton, California,
which is maybe two and a half hours away
from San Francisco.
It's in the middle of what used to be great farmland
but has been overdeveloped with tract housing,
so it's a lot of, uh, kinda cheap, ugly houses
one after another after another.
It was pretty homophobic.
Nobody said anything about gay people unless it was to call us fags.
Now the white people in the suburbs,
they can stop people of color from being in their community
by making it really hard for people of color to get loans.
But what they can't do is stop the white queer from being born amongst them.
-(cheering) -You thought you were safe in the suburbs,
and then your child is me.
(laughter and cheering)
All the young men ages 18 to 30 who are straight
are going to come to the stage now because
the only way the white queer
can hook up with anyone is if he converts.
♪ When marimba rhythm ♪
♪ Starts to play ♪
♪ Dance with me ♪
♪ Make me sway ♪
All the straight guys!
♪ Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore ♪
♪ Sway me smooth ♪
♪ Sway me more ♪
♪ Other dancers may be on the floor, yeah ♪
♪ Dear, but my eyes, they see only you ♪
♪ Only you have the magic technique ♪
♪ When we sway, I go weak ♪
Do exactly what I do.
♪ ♪
(cheering)
♪ Other dancers may be on the floor ♪
♪ Dear, but my eyes, they see only you ♪
♪ Only you have the magic technique ♪
♪ When we sway ♪
♪I go weak ♪
♪ I can hear the sound of violins ♪
♪ Long before it begins ♪
♪ When we sway you have a way with me ♪
♪ Stay with me ♪
Do exactly what I'm doing.
♪ Stay with me ♪
(panting)
(raucous cheering)
Keep doing that, keep doing that, keep doing that, keep doing that.
I think we have a winner.
(cheering)
You all may go sit down now.
Thank you. Thank you.
(men shouting)
♪ Don't ♪ (panting)
♪ Don't ♪
♪ That's what you say in the suburbs ♪
When I wanna have a little public display of affection with you
and you're gonna try to stop me, you know, just a little bit at first
and then by the end of the number, I'm gonna be chasing you around the stage.
Okay?
♪ Each time ♪
♪ That I hold you ♪
♪ This way ♪
♪ When the night is cold ♪
♪ And I want to hold you ♪
♪ Baby, don't say "Don't" ♪
♪ Don't, come on, say "Don't" ♪
(laughs)
♪ Don't leave my embrace ♪
♪ For here in my arms ♪
♪ Is your place ♪
Just give me a kiss!
Ehhhh...
♪ And if you think that ♪
♪ This is just a way ♪
♪ Of saying ♪
♪ I don't mean... ♪
(laughs)
♪ ...everything I say ♪
♪ Don't... ♪ Just give me, love me!
Why can't you love me?
Don't... (sobbing)
♪ That's ♪
♪ What you say ♪
♪ For here ♪
♪ In my arms ♪
♪ Is your place ♪
♪ ♪
(cheering and applause)
Audience Member: Whoo!
(band playing "Freedom Highway")
♪ Marching ♪
♪ On the freedom highway ♪
♪ Marching ♪
♪ Each and every day ♪
You all are on the bus to the March on Washington now.
♪ On the freedom highway ♪
♪ I found dead people in the forest ♪
♪ The Tallahatchie River and lake ♪
♪ The whole wide world is wonderin' ♪
♪ Oh, what's wrong with the United States? ♪
♪ Oh, yes, we want peace ♪
♪ That's if it can be found ♪
♪ I'm gonna stay on freedom's highway ♪
♪ And I won't be turned around ♪
♪ Well, I guess I'll vote for the right one ♪
♪ Who said we'll overcome ♪
♪ And I'll march on freedom's highway ♪
♪ Until the day is done ♪
♪ Oh, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Marching ♪
♪ On the freedom highway ♪
♪ Yeah, hey, yeah ♪
♪ Marching ♪
♪ Each and every day ♪
♪ I made up my mind ♪
♪ I said I made up, I made up my mind ♪
♪ And I won't turn around ♪
♪ I made up my mind ♪
♪ Made up my mind ♪
♪ And I won't turn around ♪
♪ I made up my mind ♪
♪ And I won't turn around ♪
♪ I made up my mind ♪
♪ Made up my mind ♪
♪ And I won't turn around ♪
♪ And I won't turn a... ♪
♪ ...round ♪
♪ Ooh-ooh... ♪
♪ Every ♪
♪ Day ♪
♪ Hey-ey-ey-ey... ♪
♪ No, no, no, no, no ♪
Hey!
(cheering)
Steffanie Christi'an and Thornetta Davis!
The March on Washington, it was organized by a queer Black man by the name of Bayard Rustin.
(cheering)
They did not want you to know he was a queer Black man,
because they were thinking, "One thing at a time."
(laughing)
Taylor: Growing up in Stockton,
you're feeling like the world is attacking you,
and so you have to find your people or, or you'll dissolve,
um...
or be beaten to a pulp.
You know, you have to find, you have to find them.
So I-I found them.
1, 2, 3, 4...
(playing "Born to Run")
♪ In the day we sweat it out on the streets ♪
♪ Of a runaway American dream ♪
♪ At night we ride through the mansions of glory ♪
♪ In our suicide machines ♪
♪ Sprung out on cages out on Highway 9 ♪
♪ Chrome wheeled, fuel injected ♪
♪ And steppin' out over the line ♪
♪ Whoa, baby this town rips the bones from your back ♪
♪ It's a death trap ♪
♪ It's a suicide rap ♪
♪ We gotta get out while we're young ♪
♪ 'Cause, baby tramps like us ♪
♪ Baby, we were born to run ♪
This is what's gonna happen.
I'm going to be the queer of America,
you're the homophobes of America.
-Audience: Whoo! -I'm gonna run by you, and when I run by you,
you can throw your ping-pong balls at me, okay?
One, two, three, four!
♪ The highway's full of broken heroes ♪
♪ In a last chance power drive ♪
♪ Everybody's out on the run tonight ♪
♪ And there's no place left to hide... ♪
(groans)
Niegel: My mom a-and dad came
and after the show ends, my mom
still has the ping-pong ball in her hand and she says,
"I'm sorry, but I-I just couldn't throw it."
And his aunt was like, "Yay, I'll..."
She was throwing the ping-pong ball.
Everyone has a different internal monologue that they're going through.
That's the art that's in the room.
♪ Run ♪
♪ Run-uh-uh-uh-un ♪
(band playing dramatic finish)
(applause)
So that's what it was like in America before Will & Grace.
(laughter)
(band playing "Snakeskin Cowboys")
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Snakeskin cowboys ♪
♪ Who the hell you think you are? ♪
♪ You're hangin' around ♪
♪ With your high-heeled boots ♪
♪ Don't think that should get too far ♪
♪ You're hangin' around ♪
♪ With your fancy pants on ♪
♪ You ain't got nothin' on me ♪
♪ Thinkin' you got it ♪
♪ Right here on the stage ♪
♪ Stick around, boys ♪
♪ Maybe I can set you free ♪
Matt and I, we didn't wanna actually have to listen
to the Ted Nugent song in order to learn it.
(laughter)
We read the lyrics and they seemed bad enough.
I said, "This lyric is about fag-bashing."
And, and I thought, "Well, that's maybe not true."
And then I-I heard an interview with Ted Nugent from the '70s
where he said, "This song's about fags."
He doesn't like anyone who dresses fancy on a stage,
and he's gonna set them free.
Maybe you could see why I would take offense to that song.
(laughter)
When I read that lyric, I said, "We're gonna appropriate that shit."
(cheering)
So, so Matt threw down some of his own music
and we decided to turn the song into a gay junior prom song.
I want you to find somebody
who is the same gender as you.
If you're gender queer, you can pick anybody.
And find someone who's the same gender as you
and you're going to slow-dance with them.
Come on up, come on up. Everybody, everybody up.
Stand up. Stand up, everybody. You're all doing this now.
You're all finding somebody of your same gender to dance with.
Here, let me-- I'll demonstrate on this guy right here.
I've noticed, uh, that when straight guys dance,
or even gay guys that don't know each other,
they can sometimes, you know, um, ch--
or when they hug, they, like, try to put their, their pelvises
as far away from each other as possible.
Like, I don't want any space between you.
I want this kind of...
-All right? Okay? -Okay.
All right. So that's what I want. So go find somebody.
It doesn't have to be two people,
it can be three people.
It's not a heteronormative narrative.
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Snakeskin cowboys ♪
♪ Who the hell you think you are? ♪
♪ You're hangin' around ♪
♪ With your high-heeled sneakers ♪
♪ Don't think that should get too far ♪
♪ You're hangin' around ♪
♪ With your fancy pants on ♪
♪ Prancin' all around the stage ♪
All right, I let you have a round
where you got to laugh and joke and hook up with people and stuff.
-(laughter) -Audience Member: Whoo!
But now, I want you to take it really seriously.
I realize that sometimes the nervous laughter and the chatting and stuff
is about intimacy with strangers in public spaces and, you know, I get it,
but it's also maybe the possibility
that there's a little bit of that nervousness
is about internalized homophobia or a homophobia, right?
So just, uh, just hold the person,
just be romantic with them
and while Matt plays this piano solo.
(romantic piano solo playing)
♪ ♪
Taylor: I want to believe that an artist's job
is to dream the culture forward.
So to look at the things that aren't working in society
and imagine how it could be better.
(piano music continues)
♪ Ooh, snakeskin cowboys ♪
♪ Who the hell do you think you are? ♪
♪ You're hangin' around ♪
♪ With your high-heeled boots ♪
♪ Don't think that should get too far ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Snakeskin cowboys ♪
(song ends)
(cheering and applause)
Thank you so much!
Taylor's created something that
is a radical format
for creating community,
and I, I think
the number-one reason we have problems in America
is lack of community.
That's my opinion.
Um, I think that's why all these people are so angry,
because they want to belong to something.
What Taylor does is opens the queer community to the world.
Taylor: We're gonna focus on songs that were
popular in the, in the back-room sex party from 1976 to '86.
(piano playing slow version of "Gloria")
♪ Gloria ♪
(laughter)
♪ You're always on the run now ♪
♪ Runnin' after somebody ♪
♪ You got to get him somehow ♪
♪ I think you better slow down ♪
♪ Before you stop growing ♪
♪ I think you're headed for a breakdown ♪
♪ So be careful not to show it ♪
♪ Then you really don't remember ♪
♪ Was it something that he said? ♪
♪ Or the voices in your head ♪
♪ Calling ♪
♪ Gloria! ♪
(laughter)
Okay.
So, every single person in this room
has had somebody in their life, at some point in their life,
tell them that having sex with multiple partners is a bad thing.
Every single person in this room.
So I want you to channel that person right now.
You're just going to point at your neighbors
and you're gonna sing this.
(quiet, judgemental tone) ♪ Gloria, Gloria ♪
Just do it, channel that judgy person.
♪ Gloria, Gloria ♪
♪ Gloria, Glo-- ♪
Now, point it at yourself.
♪ Gloria, Gloria ♪
And then other people and yourself.
♪ Gloria, Gloria ♪
(mouthing words)
Audience (softly): ♪ Gloria, Gloria ♪
Taylor: Okay. Great.
All right, now the next step is, uh,
you're about to enter the back room and you're gonna liberate yourself,
so you're like, "Oh, my God! So exciting!"
So you're just gonna, like, shout out "Gloria" to the universe,
like you're saying hallelujah.
♪ Gloria, Gloria ♪ Yes.
(man shouts "Gloria!")
(with audience) ♪ Gloria, Gloria ♪
Great, you guys got that one, all right.
Now, now the real trick,
in order to really know what it's like in a back room,
you have to have that shaming, the shaming of yourself
and also the liberation all at the same time.
That's what it really feels like to be in the back room.
Okay, so, everybody, you just mix it up whenever you want, right?
It is not a homogeneous experience.
You can do all kinds of different things. Ready? Okay, here we go.
♪ Gloria, Gloriaaaa! ♪
♪ Gloria, Gloria! ♪
(tempo increasing)
♪ Gloria, Gloria ♪
Now, everybody up on your feet.
♪ Gloria, Gloria ♪
Yeah.
♪ Gloria, Gloria ♪
One more!
♪ Gloria, Gloria ♪
(cheering and applause)
(band playing "Heroes")
♪ ♪
♪ I ♪
♪ I wish I could swim ♪
♪ Like the dolphins ♪
♪ Like the dolphins can swim ♪
♪ And nothing ♪
♪ Will keep us together ♪
♪ We can beat them ♪
♪ Forever and ever ♪
♪ We can be heroes ♪
♪ Just for one day ♪
♪ I ♪
♪ I will be queen ♪
♪ And you ♪
♪ You'll be my queen ♪
♪ And nothing ♪
♪ Will tear us apart ♪
♪ Oh, we can beat them ♪
♪ Forever and ever ♪
♪ We could be heroes ♪
♪ Just for one day ♪
♪ I ♪
♪ I remember ♪
chorus: ♪ I remember ♪
♪ Standing ♪ (Audience cheering)
♪ Standing by the wall ♪
Chorus: ♪ By the wall ♪
♪ And the bullets flew ♪
♪ They flew above our heads ♪
Chorus: ♪ Above our heads ♪
♪ And we kissed ♪
♪ As if nothing could fall ♪
Chorus: ♪ Nothing could fall ♪
♪ And the shame ♪
♪ It was on the other side ♪
♪ We could beat them ♪
♪ Forever and ever ♪
♪♪ We could be heroes ♪
♪ Just for one day ♪
Come on down, Russian penis!
-(audience cheering) -Taylor: Here comes Gorbachev!
I think we're gonna have to have a Cold War reenactment.
But when we do, the penises are going to ejaculate all over you.
Now, when they do ejaculate on you,
I want you to take that energy and have a little sex magic ritual right now.
Take all that energy from it,
and we're going to put it out into the universe
so that we can have some world peace.
Everybody, pull that energy in.
You're gonna have three yells, ready? Here we go.
Ohh! Ohh...
♪ Ohhhhhh... ♪
(sky rockets whistling)
♪ We could be heroes ♪
♪ Just for one day ♪
(cheering and applause)
(pianist improvising on theme)
Taylor: Because we've lost a musician every hour,
hour one, you've got all the support,
but as you're at your weakest, you have the least amount of support.
But the audience, they start to support us more.
We lose energy onstage, but they give more energy,
even though they are really tired too.
(audience whooping and hollering)
Taylor: We're also building ourselves because we rally together
to figure out how to navigate it.
(band playing "Love Will Tear Us Apart")
(cheering)
♪ ♪
♪ When routine bites hard ♪
♪ And ambitions are low ♪
♪ And resentment runs high ♪
♪ But emotion won't grow ♪
♪ And we're changing our ways ♪
♪ Taking different roads ♪
♪ Love ♪
♪ Love will tear us apart again ♪
Anastasia: This is the AIDS era,
the era when so many people lost their loved ones.
And, and, you know, like how your mascara runs,
so it's tears, but it's also like mascara's running,
and it's just like, it keeps running,
and it's, like, doesn't stop.
(song ends)
(cheering and applause)
(band playing "Blood Makes Noise")
1986.
I've just watched the network television premiere
of Clash of the Titans.
That night I go to bed
and I have a dream of Maggie Smith riding a Pegasus.
(laughter)
And it is my first wet dream.
(laughter)
There are also two men having sex in the dream,
but I think it was Maggie Smith that did it.
I woke up from that dream in, like, mid-orgasm,
I was like... (gasps)
And I immediately thought, "Gay people, when they have sex,
"they give each other AIDS, and I just had sex, and I'm gay.
That means I must have just given myself AIDS."
(clicks tongue) Then all that day at school,
the teachers were teaching, teaching, teaching, talking, talking, talking.
I couldn't listen to a single thing they were saying
'cause the entire time, I thought, "I'm gonna get AIDS."
♪ I'd like to help you, Doctor ♪
♪ Yes, I really really would ♪
♪ But the din in my head ♪
♪ It's too much and it's no good ♪
♪ I'm standing in a windy tunnel ♪
♪ Shouting through the roar ♪
♪ And I'd like to give the information ♪
♪ As before ♪
♪ But blood makes noise ♪
♪ It's ringing in my ear ♪
♪ Blood makes ♪
(whispering) ♪ Noise ♪
♪ I can't really hear you in the thickening, I fear ♪
♪ Blood makes noise ♪
(applause)
So we've reached our AIDS decade, and, uh...
I thought we should lose something very special,
so this is our last time with Machine,
our costume designer.
(audience sighing)
(cheering)
Taylor: The audience has a bond to that queen.
Every time you see one of those outfits,
it is just pure delight,
so when you think that all of that delight
and all that artistry was gonna be taken away,
for me, it's...
what it was like to come of age during the AIDS epidemic.
Uh, every incredible artist
that you... hoped would be a mentor,
you know, um, passes.
(cheering and applause)
Taylor: It's time to say goodbye to our guitarist,
Viva DeConcini.
Niegel: The first time we lose a musician
after the first hour, you're like,
"But you've only been here an hour."
Uh... Hmm. Excuse me.
(voice breaking) Uh, we lost so many people in our community,
um, to HIV and AIDS and the complications,
and some folks had only been with us
for a very short amount of time.
(sighs) Excuse me.
So it's very hard to lose people throughout the work,
um, and-and to be reminded of that, um, in our community.
Uh, so, yeah, it's deeply significant...
because when you're, when you're left,
and you've been working with them so hard
and then they're gone and you're left and so you're like,
"Great, I have to, I have to keep going.
I have to keep bringing my artistry and my voice."
Uh, I think there's so much poetry in that...
but that's also our life.
(cheering)
Taylor: Dating in the '90s was navigating
whether or not you wanted to go on a date
with someone who might not be here in six months.
Never having the moment where your sexuality is free.
(clicks tongue) Yeah.
So not... not kinda having
the sense of what you may be missing,
but you know, always, always being afraid of sex.
(band playing "Denny")
♪ Denny picked me up, Denny did me ♪
♪ He got a tattoo of his dick on his belly ♪
♪ It was double vision ♪
♪ Disorienting ♪
♪ Denny's kind of a dorky fella ♪
♪ Denny's dramatic ♪
♪ Denny is dark ♪
♪ He ain't nothin' like the restaurant ♪
♪ He's got "HIV positive" tattooed in black ♪
♪ In six-inch letters on his back ♪
♪ He says, "I want them to see what they'd done to me" ♪
♪ Denny ♪
♪ Denny's reading the Decameron ♪
♪ About a plague that came before ♪
♪ 'Cause Denny is dying and Denny don't like it ♪
♪ And Denny don't dance no more ♪
♪ He's kinda New Age but Denny's not that smart ♪
♪ He's trying to love himself but doesn't really know how ♪
♪ He's got a heart tattoo with his own name in it ♪
♪ Trouble is Denny doesn't really get it ♪
♪ Self-esteem is just a dream for Denny ♪
♪ Denny can be very funny ♪
♪ He says he wants my asshole tattooed on his chin ♪
♪ Denny is very demanding ♪
♪ 'Cause Denny don't got long to live ♪
♪ Denny did porno ♪
♪ Photos and film ♪
♪ Until his tattoos ruined his career ♪
♪ He stands there watching the video ♪
♪ Watching himself get infected ♪
♪ Denny has pneumocystis ♪
♪ And a new tattoo as well ♪
♪ Denny got a skull and crossbones ♪
♪ Smack in the middle of his forehead ♪
♪ He said, "I want them to see what they'd done to me" ♪
♪ Denny ♪
♪ He said, "I want them to see what they'd done to me" ♪
♪ Denny ♪
♪ He said, "I want them to see what they'd done to me" ♪
♪ Denny ♪
(cheering)
The very first time I ever met an "out" homosexual,
it was thousands all at the same time.
I found out about this thing called an AIDS Walk,
and my friend Marcy and I went to the AIDS Walk,
uh, in San Francisco,
and the first time I ever saw one "out" homosexual, it was thousands of them,
and the reason they were all together is 'cause, of course, they were dying,
and their loved ones were dying,
and they were screaming and laughing and dancing and joyous,
while at the same time horrified and full of sorrow,
and they, uh, were pushing loved ones in wheelchairs
and...
uh...
what I experienced was a community of people
that were being, um, built
as a result of being torn apart,
and it was a pretty profound experience for a kid.
Years later, I thought, many years later, I thought,
I wanna make a show that is some kind of metaphorical representation of that.
So we started making a 24-decade history of popular music.
This decade is all songs that were popular
with radical lesbians during the AIDS epidemic.
Many gay men, their parents, family members wouldn't take care of them
and their lovers were dying at the same time that they were struggling,
and so, um...
many lesbians really stepped up
in a way that was above and beyond.
(rock music playing)
Taylor: I learned my politics from radical lesbians
and I learned how to have confidence from radical lesbians.
Lesbians spend so much time having to stretch towards the rest of us.
I thought it would be sweet
if we invite all of the lesbians in the audience
to come up on stage.
(guitar playing "Girl on a Road")
Taylor: So, they got to see
all of us stretch towards them.
♪ My momma was a waitress ♪
♪ My daddy a truck driver ♪
♪ The thing that kept their power from them ♪
♪ Slowed me down awhile ♪
♪ I remember the morning ♪
♪ It was the closing of my youth ♪
♪ When I said goodbye to no one ♪
♪ And in that way faced my truth ♪
♪ And a walk along the river ♪
♪ And a rain a-coming down ♪
♪ And a girl ♪
♪ On a road ♪
Taylor: ♪ But if music is a boulder ♪
♪ Let me carry it a long while ♪
♪ Let it turn into a feather ♪
♪ Let it brush against my smile ♪
♪ Let the life be somewhat settled ♪
♪ With the life that song has made ♪
♪ Let there be nothing I am longing for ♪
♪ In some plan I may have made ♪
♪ In some story quickly written ♪
♪ In a long forgotten time ♪
♪ By a girl ♪
♪ On a road ♪
Together: ♪ Rain upon the water ♪
♪ Makes footprints sunk in sand ♪
♪ Anger upon angry hurt ♪
♪ Take me by the hand ♪
♪ Take me by the heartstrings ♪
♪ And pull me deep inside ♪
♪ And say I'm one with your forgiveness ♪
♪ And separate from my pride ♪
♪ ♪
(song ends)
(cheering and applause)
(cheering and applause continue)
Matt: I had put so much of my life at that point into helping create the show.
It took a physical toll on me and it took a mental toll
and it was all positive, but it was a lot.
We've been doing this all night and I thought,
I don't want to leave Taylor alone on stage.
I can't leave Taylor alone on stage, i-it's-- I have to stay here.
(cheering and applause)
(fans whistling)
(cheering and applause continue)
(audience exclaiming, applauding)
(cheers and exclaims intensify)
(playing "When All the Artists Leave or Die")
♪ When all the artists ♪
♪ Leave or die ♪
♪ And you're alone on stage ♪
♪ Naked and unrehearsed ♪
♪ Grasping for lines ♪
♪ And trying to save some grace ♪
♪ When all the fairies ♪
♪ Are dead and buried ♪
♪ Then will the pixie dust be swept? ♪
♪ When all the radicals die ♪
♪ Or are married... ♪
(laughter)
♪ ...then will the tragedy end ♪
♪ Or begin? ♪
Taylor: Ultimately for me, it's all about
expressing and experiencing
the full range of who you are
and taking the time
to actually do that, and, um...
and so, who you are
as somebody who has to leave,
as well as somebody
who can, um...
be at the center.
♪ Sleep well ♪
♪ Get up ♪
♪ Do it again ♪
♪ Day after day after day ♪
♪ Until the cockroaches are ♪
♪ Your only patrons ♪
♪ Even then ♪
♪ You can lie down ♪
♪ Or get up and play ♪
♪ You can lie down ♪
♪ Or get up and play ♪
♪ You can lie down ♪
♪ Or get up and play ♪
♪ You can lie down ♪
♪ Or get up and play ♪
Go ahead and sing it.
(laughter)
(with audience) ♪ You can lie down ♪
♪ Or get up and play ♪
♪ You can lie down ♪
♪ Or get up and play ♪
♪ You can lie down ♪
♪ Or get up and play ♪
♪ You can lie down ♪
♪ Or get up and play ♪
Audience (softly): ♪ You can lie down ♪
♪ Or get up and play ♪
♪ You can lie down ♪
♪ Or get up and play ♪
♪ You can lie down ♪
♪ Or get up and play ♪
♪ You can lie down ♪
♪ Or get up and play ♪
♪ You can lie down ♪
♪ Or get up and play ♪
(cheering and applause)
(band playing "People Have the Power")
Taylor: ♪ I was dreaming in my dreaming ♪
♪ Of an aspect bright and fair ♪
♪ And my sleeping ♪
♪ It was broken ♪
♪ But my dream it lingered near ♪
♪ In the form of shining valleys ♪
♪ Where the pure air is recognized ♪
♪ And my senses newly opened ♪
♪ I awakened to the cry ♪
♪ The people have the power ♪
♪ The power to dream ♪
♪ To rule ♪
♪ To wrestle the earth from fools ♪
♪ It is decreed the people rule ♪
Listen! ♪ I believe ♪
♪ Everything we dream ♪
♪ Can come to pass in our union ♪
♪ We can turn the earth around ♪
♪ We can turn the world's revolution ♪
♪ The people have the power ♪
♪ ♪
(rhythmic clapping)
(cheering and applause)
(band playing "Peter Gunn Theme")
♪ To everything ♪
♪ Turn turn turn turn turn turn turn ♪
♪ There is a season ♪
♪ Turn turn turn turn turn turn turn ♪
♪ And a time ♪
♪ For every season ♪
♪ Under heaven ♪
(horns improvising)
♪ To everything ♪
♪ Turn turn turn turn turn turn turn ♪
♪ There is a season ♪
♪ Turn turn turn turn turn turn turn ♪
♪ And a time ♪
♪ For every purpose ♪
♪ Under heaven ♪
♪ A time for love ♪
♪ A time for hate ♪
♪ A time to rend ♪
♪ A time to sow ♪
♪ A time you may embrace ♪
♪ A time to refrain ♪
♪ From embracing ♪
(horns improvising)
♪ ♪
Oh!
♪ To everything ♪
♪ Turn turn turn turn turn turn turn ♪
♪ There is a season ♪
♪ Turn turn turn turn turn turn turn ♪
♪ And a time ♪
♪ For every purpose ♪
♪ Under heaven ♪
♪ A time to gain ♪
♪ A time to lose ♪
♪ A time for love ♪
♪ A time for hate ♪
♪ A time to reap ♪
♪ A time to sow ♪
♪ A time for peace ♪
♪ I swear it's not too late ♪
(horns improvising)
(band playing dramatic finish)
Good night, everybody!
(cheering and applause)