David & Goliath - the musical Written & performed inside four days (8-11 Jul 03) Israelites: Saul, David, other soldiers including David's brother Philistines: Goliath and other soldiers No.1 Ph: Here is the star of the Philistine crowd Goliath of Gath is his name He's big and he's loud and he's strong and he's proud Everyone knows of his fame G: Look at these Israelites, servants of Saul Lining up there for a fight Really these soldiers are weaklings, and all Are cowering yonder in fright Listen you boys, cos I have an idea One which for me will be fun You Israelites are much weaker than we are We'll settle it now one on one Give me a man! Ph: Honestly, we have an over-reliance On this guy, Goliath, down here Hear our champion's shameless defiance We safely stay back in the rear G: Give me a man! That's what I say Send out a fighter to fight I defy Israel's army today Where is your courage and might Give me a man! Send out someone brave If he's lucky enough to defeat me Each of us you may then count as your slaves Then again, no one can beat me Ph: They'll be our subjects if our bloke should win None of us doubt that he will Come on, King Saul, come and send a man in Someone Goliath will kill G: Saul was a hero, the star of his clan Come on down tackle me now if you can Ph: Pick a man, choose him, you'll probably lose him You'll never outmuscle our man in a tussle He is the champ of the Philistine camp G: Give me a man! No.2 Soldier: Here his challenge, this mean giant Challenges us to fight He keeps tauting us, defiant Could he really be right Look at him, he's such a rough one Killed many men, you bet yourself If face to face with such a tough one I'm fairly sure you'd wet yourself Saul: A great reward is up for whoever Kills Goliath - riches and His family will be tax-free forever And he may take my daughter's hand Brother: But we sit here in abject shame We need a soldier who is brave But none of us at all are game So we'll - Oh, hello Dave David: Who defies the living LORD This heathen do not fear Just see - reward or no reward I'm in. I volunteer Brother: Back to the sheep now, little brother You've got no chance at all This should be left to another You're a boy, he's nine feet tall David: In the pastures I have fought Lions and bears and killed them all God is on my side, I ought To fight. My I try now, King Saul? Saul: David, you're the bravest one You might need my armour then Try it on! Get ready, son LORD be with David! (All: Amen!) David: Thankyou sir, but this big suit Of armour is too heavy for me Without it I will fight the brute I'll use my sling - just see Goliath: This fellow must be very brave To come at me with stick and stones He's hardly old enough to shave We'll see who will break whose bones No.3 You come at me with pointy sticks Your body dressed in armour I dont need that weaponry Cos I've got God's power Today the LORD is on my side He'll help me win the battle With your sword I'll cut off your head And use it as a rattle And with your dead soldiers We'll take them back home And the birds and animals will come to feast Picked clean like a fine toothed comb David slings a stone at Goliath. It hits him and he falls down dead. The triumphant Israelites chase the Philistines off and return. No.4 Goliath had it all Goliath was so strong He measured nine feet tall But now he's nine feet long Not by human might Not by spear or swords David won the fight Because it was the LORD's. The End Notes on the creation of this piece at MADD Camp, July 2003 Even the simplest story turns long if you want to make it a musical. We needed something short enough that we could write something and learn it in three days, and which would involve everyone. We chose the story of David and Goliath. That was the only one which seemed short enough with enough people. Most of the Bible has a very low proportion of women (as we found out doing a play of the story of Joseph at my church the previous month) and this one was perfect for an all-male group. The story of David and Goliath is in the Bible in 1 Samuel 17. We looked through that to find the longest sections of one person talking. (If you ever want to make a short story into a musical, start by finding the longest stretches of one person thinking or talking). They are Goliath challenging the Israelites (8-10) and David as he comes up to meet Goliath (45-47). We made these numbers 1 and 3. No 2, then, was everything between them: The Israelites terror, Saul's offer of a reward and David volunteering to fight. No 4 is the Israelites' triumphant song at the end. We worked out music for Nos 1 & 2, No 3 is spoken and for No 4 we used "We wish you a merry Christmas" in 4:4 time instead of 3:4. Tris played Saul (and guitar), Sam was David and Ian, Lenard & Reuben made up the Israelite army. Joel & I played Goliath with Craig & Brendan as the other Philistines. Gerald played keyboard. Being the music rather than drama workshop group, we payed little attention to staging and didn't bother with the movements in No 2 one might interpret from the words there. And since we were holding both scripts and microphones we there wasn't much we could do. I was amazed that we got from talking about making a musical on Tuesday to performing it on Friday, considering that we only spent 1-1½h of workshop time each day on it. In the past I'd created computer games in a 3-8 day timeframe when they usually take as many months or more, and I had been hoping to do the same thing producing something for the stage, and this was it! If I was going to use this in the future, I'd probably omit No.4 (although I love the "nine feet long" line) and rewrite No.3 (the only lyrics I didn't write here).