i'm so drunGk, dear - (2007)    

E. E. Cummings

for medium voice and piano

---

 

the

nimble

heat

had

 

long on a certain

taut precarious

holiday

frighteningly

 

performed

and

at tremont and bromfield i.....

This text remains under copyright and is therefore not fully reproduced herein.

From PORTRAITS, in Tulips and Chimneys, 1923

[ 3 pages, circa 3' 40" ]

---

E. E. Cummings

 

This wonderfully strange text paints a "portrait" of Dorothy, who has in this vignette a public drunk. A crowd has gathered around her, and the speaker is one acquainted with her intimately, perhaps trying to help.

 

 

Written for medium voice, the setting begins with a stark, empty picture as of a hot day. Stillness, which is broken by the stillness of a woman "which had once been dorothy." Is the reader to think her dead, or merely "dead to the world?" The range of the voice is shown in the first gestures, broadly essaying the text over a stark accompaniment.

 

 

As the drunk Dorothy begins to awaken from her stupor, "enormous sobs" tell of some emotional travail which perhaps preceded the drunkenness. At this point the stillness of the accompaniment yields to a structured 4/4 gesture which is not so much a progression of chords as a "holding in place" for what is to come.

 

 

 

As the central yet unnamed character tries to help Dorothy, she awakens further with the bawdily blurted "i'm so drunGk, dear." The capitalized "G" in the word is meant to be vocalized as a second syllable in the one-syllable word, drunk.

 

 

The score for i'm so drunGk, dear is available as a free PDF download, though any major commercial performance or recording of the work is prohibited without prior arrangement with the composer. Click on the graphic below for this piano-vocal score.

 

i'm so drunGk, dear