[Intro — MC patter, drum roll, muted trumpet stinger] Ladies, gentlemen, and all the saints between, Dim the house and mind your feathers. Our next act has been buried twice and is still on the bill. Put your hands together for the one, the only, Fantabulosa! (rimshot) [Verse 1] Five years old in the back of the car, You said the teacher Mr. Johnson was hot, and you said it out loud. Nice Johnson your brothers is punched, sister shushed, Your father's eyes in the rearview mirror Said fold up small and don't draw a crowd kid. [Verse 2] Music, grace, took you out on a crawl Down Christopher Street, bar to bar, wall to wall. They tried to press you back into shape, But clay remembers. There's no escape. [Instrumental — slow bump-and-grind vamp, trumpet slide, first glove off] [Chorus] Take it off, darling, take it off slow, Peel back the plaster, steal the show. They buried you deep, ten feet below, But look who's fucking still got the glow! Fantabulosa, you confabulation queen! Fantabulosa, you filthy queen! [Verse 3] A drawing a day and a cabinet of saints, A banana and a ham, and nobody faints. A queer duck sits on the banana, content, The critics all ask what the hell it meant. Marsha's on Weehawken dancing all night, Sylvia's still carrying the light. [Chorus] Take it off, darling, take it off slow, Peel back the plaster, steal the show. They buried you deep, ten feet below, But look who's fucking still got the glow! Fantabulosa, you confabulation queen! Fantabulosa, you filthy queen! [Lead-in — the band drops to a single piano, slow, spoken] Take it off slower, darling. Under the feathers, the glaze. Under the glaze, the plaster. Under the plaster, a name. Say it. [Lamentation — spoken, hushed pipe organ, a choir answers each line] Charlotte Corday, who put the knife in the Sacred Heart of Marat. (Pray for us) Marsha, most generous, who danced on Weehawken Street and was pulled from the Hudson. (Pray for us) Sylvia, most loyal, who held her ground against the nice gay boys. (Pray for us) Venus Xtravaganza, strangled in a hotel room, her killer never found. (Pray for us) Islan Nettles, beaten on a Harlem street for being herself. (Pray for us) Layleen Polanco, who died in a cell on Rikers Island. (Pray for us) Rita Hester, whose name began the remembering. (Pray for us) Brandon Teena and Gwen Araujo, killed the night they were found out. (Pray for us) Sakia Gunn, fifteen, stabbed at a Newark bus stop for saying no. (Pray for us) Eudy Simelane, who played football for her country and was killed for loving women. (Pray for us) The women no one counted. (Pray for us) Matthew Shepard, left tied to a fence in Laramie. (Pray for us) The thirty-two of the UpStairs Lounge, burned in New Orleans while the city made jokes. (Pray for us) The forty-nine at Pulse, who were dancing. (Pray for us) The men of Chechnya, taken in the night, wired to a black box, so that none would be left. (Pray for us) Pierre Seel, who could not speak for forty years. (Pray for us) Ethyl Eichelberger, who played every part, and all our dead of the plague years who had no funerals. (Pray for us) Anthony, ten years old, who knelt on raw rice for saying he liked boys. Beaten to death by mama. (Pray for us) [Last Chorus — one voice, piano only, very slow] Take it off, darling, take it off slow, They buried you deep, ten feet below, And still, and still, you've got the glow. [Outro — spoken, one last rimshot] Thank you, you've been a lovely house. Mind the feathers on your way out. Tip your waitress. Tip your saints. Bona no-chyee, darlings. Curtain. [Outro — slow, spoken] Survival. Witness. Defiance. Darlings
