Talent - Stephen Sondheim

When I was a tyke

I said, «What I like

Is art

I know I’m a boy

But what I enjoy

Is art.»

Looking at paintings, going to plays

Music and books informing my days

Filling my mind

Flooding my heart

With art!

I had this dream of becoming an artist

A painter, a poet, who knows?

I had a nice little talent for drawing

And a natural feeling for prose

I even began to compose

So many talents

Wasn’t I blessed?

All of them good

A few of them better

None of them best

Just enough talent

To know that I hadn’t the talent

So I put my dream

And my self-esteem

To rest

That must have been difficult

Yes.

But it didn’t matter.

I merely had to find out what I was meant to be

(sung)

I couldn’t decide

Then one day I spied

Palm Beach

A speck on the map

No more than a gap

Palm beach

Jungle and seashore, muddy and raw

But in a flash I suddenly saw

What it would take

What I could make

Palm Beach!

I had this dream of a city of artists

Versailles by the Florida sea

A sort of world congregation of artists

All encouraged to set themselves free

I knew what I wanted to be!

I’d be their host and supporter

The patron saint

Of the things that they’d write

And compose and paint

I shall wander among them with lavish praise

As they carve their statues

Construct their plays

Design their buildings

Recite their rhymes

Making modern art

Fit for modern times!

So many talents

Gathered en masse!

Painters and poets

Artists and dreamers

Watered like grass

And if the talent I have

Is for nurturing talent

Then succeed or fail

I will see they sail

First class

And my father can go stick it up his ass!