First Things First
From Outlandia
First Things First
With the country shut down, the regime demands its loyalty oaths, and this is a five-and-a-half-minute chamber opera of coup and pledge that trades Rose’s usual diarist’s intimacy for something colder and much larger. The engine is that relentless marching floor tom under an organ pedal and anvil hits, and the arrangement plays a clever geometry: the mix stays clenched and mono-narrow for the spoken loyalty ceremonies, then blows wide for the ensemble chorus, “Put your name beneath the man / First things first / Give your office to his hand.” The finest writing here is the smallest, the Donin Black exchange, where “Respect was never / Part of the method” lands the whole moral of the piece in a single dry line before the door closes and the gunshot answers. That the pledges snap along at a driving clip in what registers as a bright major key, against such grim content, is the trick that makes it unsettling rather than merely loud. If it asks a lot of the listener, the density and the sheer body count of characters can blur on a first pass, it rewards the second and third listens, and the synthetic-voice coda about the witness who “can be cloned” is genuinely chilling, and points toward the machine voices about to take over the record. Closer to Roger Waters’ The Wall in scope than to anything else here, and it holds the room.
Lyrics
Better Outlandia Emergency Continuance Day One The former constitution Was for a quieter age The present emergency Needs a living page Therefore, by the authority Of necessity itself I suspend the former limits For health and continuity
Can necessity grant authority It just did First things first Close the chamber Clear the hall Put the old text against the wall Strip the seals Replace the guard Law is whatever keeps us hard Call each judge Call every chair Call the men who thought their titles mattered Bring their spouses Bring their files Bring the photos they keep beside them Name Office Property Family Breath Nothing stays private After the state First things first Put your name beneath the man First things first Give your office to his hand Keep your house Keep your children Keep the air inside your chest First things first Obedience decides the rest
Justice Vale I served the charter forty years I can't sign away the court Then you've signed your answer (Door opens) Step forward (Door closes) Governor Hale I pledge my name and office My property and breath To the Continuance of Doctor And whatever comes next “Whatever” sounds uncertain To Better Outlandia Until my natural death Approved Name Office Property Family Breath Nothing stays lawful Until it serves the state First things first Put your name beneath the man First things first Give your office to his hand Keep your house Keep your children Keep the air inside your chest First things first Obedience decides the rest
Speaker Morin I sign General Cask I sign Director Fen I sign Treasurer Lott Where do I sign There See Law has gotten efficient
Donin Black I wondered how long you'd leave my name at the bottom of the page You know too much I taught too much Sign Would it matter It would show respect Respect was never Part of the method You said loyalty Was usefulness It is You're no longer useful Then you've learned it Sign the pledge No Are you surprised Of course (Door closes) (Sound of gun shot) No teacher owns the lesson No father owns the name No partner owns the bargain No witness owns the claim Debt belongs to weaker men History belongs to print Print belongs to government Government belongs to him First things first Put your name beneath the man First things first Give your memory to his hand Keep your house Keep your children Keep the air inside your chest First things first Obedience decides the rest Never preserve What power has outgrown Never keep a witness When the lesson can be cloned
Next The technology delegation Is waiting downstairs