Let ‘em Grow Copyright ©2024 Alphasongs LLC (ASCAP), www.Alphasongs.net Lyrics by Kai Cofer (ASCAP), Music by Matthew L. Kearns(ASCAP) From: The Process, a play by Kai Cofer. Chorus Let 'em grow, let 'em grow. No need to shave anymore! Let 'em grow let 'em grow. Aim for length down past the floor. Let 'em grow, let 'em grow. Take a stand and never stray Let 'em grow, let 'em grow. I never liked shaving anyway Verse One (Ross – baritone solo) I want you to know how long my beard will grow Gonna set my whiskers free. It's all about shaving and becoming truly me I'm determined to grow my beard long and wide. My hairiness will not be denied I'll grow it out and let folks see the bearded man I'm meant to be. Reveal, not conceal Got to show what I can grow. Chorus, Interlude Chorus Verse Two (Eric – bass solo) So if I don't abuse it. If I don't show disdain If I never lose it (Ross) Just think how much you will gain. (Eric) it I'm looking at your email. I like what I can see (Ross) Some day in the future that could be you and me. Chorus Let 'em grow, let 'em grow. No need to shave anymore! Let 'em grow let 'em grow. Aim for length down past the floor. Let 'em grow, let 'em grow. Take a stand and never stray Let 'em grow, let 'em grow. I never liked shaving anyway Verse Three (Ross and Eric) Long beards for each is a goal that we can reach Let us compete for beards… (Eric) …of twenty feet. Chorus Let 'em grow, let 'em grow. No need to shave anymore! Let 'em grow let 'em grow. Aim for length down past the floor. Let 'em grow, let 'em grow. Take a stand and never stray Let 'em grow, let 'em grow. I never liked shaving anyway   Notes: As Scene Five of Act One develops in the musical, the Process, Joseph, the main character finds himself waiting in the complaint department for two of the department’s clerks, Ross and Eric who clearly have many competing agendas to process complaints. In fact, Joseph becomes essentially ignored entirely and doesn’t even sing in this song. Independent of Joseph, Ross is clearly fascinated by the prospect of growing a long beard and he’s having success convincing his desk mate, Eric to do the same. And then the other long beards of the cast show up to get down and country in this delightful song. In the original lyrical development, Kai tells me he was contemplating songs outside the realm of country music, but with a mixed ensemble of long bearded hillbillies on stage, it only seemed appropriate for me to dive into the country/bluegrass genre to give the lyrics of the song good blending musical colors. Within the “hillbilly” ensemble, the percussion and the men give this song it’s rhythm, with our two ladies in the cast playing the slide guitar role in their singing parts. After the fourth and final time through the chorus I wanted to give the song an eight-measure postlude to give the two lead singers some ad lib time with the music of the hillbilly backup ensemble and a concluding Yee-Haw at the end. This could be some line or square-dancing moves or ad lib dialog TBD. With a cappella scoring, finding opportunities for moments of music and stage motion is challenging but worthwhile and I hope you think the postlude works well. It should be fun in the play. Performance Notes: This piece is scored for small to medium vocal ensemble. The theatre performance will generally have one person per part. In most of my songs, I include handclap or finger snap parts as a starting point for adding rhythmic emphasis with the idea that improvisational beatboxing can add far more interesting percussion. Not in this song. In this song, there are foot stomps on every beat and a hand clap pattern syncopated to that and off the beat. This rhythm persists throughout the entire song, and I felt because of that, these clapping and stomping parts could invite audience participation and are worth doing as written. Also I have written Verse One with crossed noteheads. In my scores, crossed noteheads means that the part can be spoken rather than sung. In verse one of this song, I would invite the baritone soloist to think of delivering this in a Johnny Cash style talk-singing way, whereas in some of my other scores, the crossed noteheads would mean rap style delivery. Not this song. Keep it country. Audio tracks generated with Cantamus software