As We Stumble Along
Original Broadway Cast Lyrics

Traveling's the fun
Flashing by the countryside
Merrily we roll along, roll along
Catching at dreams

Yesterday is done
See the pretty countryside
Everybody merrily, merrily 1961...

Some roads are easy
Some rides are breezy
Some roads the ride goes out of control
Grinds to a halt and ends in a hole
Some roads you stall before you can roll

1960

It's 1960

And gosh, what a swell year it's been!

So many blessings
Such wonders it has brought
You hardly know where to begin:
There's Xerox
And lasers
The twist and the "pill"
A city in Brazil-

That no one wants to fill

Khrushchev stopped screaming
And Librium came in

And Nixon didn't win

Goodbye then to Ike and the brass
To years that were cozy but crass
It's true Ike was icky
But better him than Dicky-
Now meet the first first family with class
En masse

There's Bobby-

And Jackie-

And Jack-

And myriads more in the back:
There's Ethel and Teddy and Pat alone-

Plus Eunice-

And Peter-

And Jean-

And Joan-

And what's-his-name-?

Stephen-

And hold the phone-
The one in the army-

One in the army?

Captain... Major...

Sargent!

That's it!

So many cards in the pack
You want to know how to keep track?
Well, one is good looking and young and rich
While one is good looking and young and rich
The rest are good looking and young and rich-
There isn't a lot that they lack
Not Bobby and Jackie and Jack
And Ethel and Ted and Eunice and Pat and Joan
And Steve and Peter and Jean and Sarge-
There's probably dozens of others at large
God knows-
And Joe and Rose

We're bringing back style to the White House

I'm painting it cream for a start

We're making it into a cultural lighthouse
For glamour and beauty and art

Evenings of the Budapest playing Vivaldi
And Munch doing bits of Ravel
I'll get Leontyne Price to sing her
Medley from "Meistersinger"
And Margot Fonteyn to dance "Giselle"

Together?

Won't it be perfectly swell?

We'll have Bernstein play next on
The Bechstein piano-

And Auden read poems and stuff

And Galina Vishnevskaya
The Russian soprano-
Just pronouncing her name is refreshing enough

We're bringing back style to the White House
With casual culture the rule

Let's have Tebaldi-

She makes a guy feel good

And Oleg Cassini-
Well, I think he's real good

And how about Heifetz?

And Callas!

And Gielgud!

And later, when everything's cool
We'll push them all into the pool!

With Bobby-

And Jackie-

And Jack

The White House is under attack

Eight years is the limit, but eight will do

By then there'll be Bobby-

-And Teddy, too

Or Peter or Stephen-

-Or even you

Ooh!
And then there's the Colonel-

Colonel?

Major-?

Major?

You know-!

Sargent

Yeah!

Dozens to take up the slack
If anything goes out of whack

And some day elections will be unknown-

'Cause each of our kids will ascend the throne-

And their kids have more kids with kids of their own-

It's sort of a family knack-

Till most of the nation's
Made up of relations
Of Bobby and Jackie and Jack
And Ethel and Ted and Eunice and Pat and Joan
And Steve and Peter and Jean and Sarge
And Joe and Rose and rows and rows
And rows and rows and rows and rows
The decade is starting anew





And maybe the country is, too