Up Against the Wall Copyright ©2024 Alphasongs LLC (ASCAP), www.Alphasongs.net Lyrics by Kai Cofer, Music by Matthew L. Kearns From: “The Process”, a play by Kai Cofer. Verse One MEN What do you do? WOMEN (Rap) What do you do when you're up against the wall? Do you try to find some courage? Do you let yourself fall? Do you keep on holding tight or do you lose your grip? When you're up against the wall do you hang, or do you slip? Verse Two MEN What do you do? WOMEN (Rap) What do you do when you're up against the wall? Do you stumble, do you crumble when you're feeling two feet tall? Do you put up a fight when no hope is in sight. Do you stand firm and tall or curl up like a ball? Chorus ALL (Sing) Up against the wall. Up against the wall. Up against the wall. Up against the wall. Up against the wall. Up against the wall. Up against the wall.   Verse Three (Ensemble) … What do you do? (Female Leads (Rappers)) What do you do when you're up against the wall? Do you turn around and run when there's no one you can call. Do you think the situation through, or do they get the best of you? When you have problems big or small and you are up against the wall. Verse Four (Ensemble) … What do you do? (Female Leads (Rappers)) Do you quiver? Do you quake? Do you shiver? Do you shake Do you grow feet of clay and try to slink away? Do you stand there and blink, without a thought to think? Do you stay? Do you pray that the wall will fall away? Or do you have the gall to tear down the wall. Brick by brick, slow or quick. with a hammer or a pick. With a mallet or an awl ‘til there's NO WALL AT ALL Chorus (Ensemble & Leads - sing) Up against the wall. Up against the wall. Up against the wall. Up against the wall. Up against the wall. Up against the wall. Up against the wall. Up against the wall.   Notes: This is the opening song of the musical, the Process, and we set the stage for this production with an overture to the difficult story to be told about the main character of the play, Joseph. The cast takes the stage, and the men establish a rhythmic harmony to be the foundation of the overture. Then the two ladies in the ensemble take the lead to talk about the story to come with acapella rhythms and harmonies backing up the rap in 3 verses The refrains emphasize the title phrase, Up Against the Wall.” in acapella harmony. Performance Notes: Although there are notes for the soprano and mezzo-soprano parts in the verses, in the theatre performance, this lead parts is intended to be performed in rap, rather than sing. The notes designated for rap are shown with crossed noteheads in this score. But these notes also have a musical position on the staff and in a concert performance outside of the theatrical presentation, the lead part could be sung with the note positions and values in this score. The “melody” in the singing version is meant to be on a chord note with minimal motion in the melody when the chord changes and no melodic motion for the duration of the chord. Basically, crossed noteheads means a theatre performance of this song in rap and a concert performance that could be rapped or sung. This piece is scored for small to medium vocal ensemble. The theatre performance will generally have one person on a part. There is a written hand clap part in this score. The clap line is a suggested starting point for adding rhythmic emphasis to this song, The clap line can also be a starting point for a good improvisational beat boxer add to add their rhythmic improvisations to enhance the beat and rhythms in this song even further. Audio tracks generated with Cantamus software