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paul mccartney’s
liverpool oratorio
Music and libretto by Paul McCartney and Carl Davis
Prelude
2024. A day in Liverpool
I. WAR
1942. A world at war. Sirens sound as bombs fall over Liverpool and despairing couples shelter underground. Amid the blaze and chaos of an air raid, a child is born. And there is hope.
II. SCHOOL
1953. The war baby, Shanty, now 11 years old and at school, celebrates his Liverpool upbringing. With classmates, he skips lessons to “sag off” and sunbathe in the graveyard of Liverpool Cathedral. Sleeping on a gravestone, he dreams of ghosts of the past and ghosts of the future. One of the ghosts, Mary Dee, is his bride-to-be. Waking and back at school, Shanty and his classmates are taught Spanish in the form of a folk song by their new teacher, Miss lnkley.
III. CRYPT
1959. Shanty, now a confused teenager, goes to a church dance in the crypt; he doubts his and God's existence. Here, Mary Dee materializes—still dreamlike–to him again. Still, he cannot see her. As he sings of his vision of the future, he hears the news that his father has died. Shanty is left sad and alone.
IV. FATHER
1959. As mourners arrive for the funeral, Shanty thinks on his confusion, fears, and upset at the death of his father. He reflects and worries about the relationship they had, distressed at his father's mortality. Finally, he realizes fathers are only human and asks for his forgiveness.
V. WEDDING
A few years later. As Shanty muses on the top of a bus, Mary Dee is drawn to him. She smoothes his self-doubts and calms his impatient ambitions; they pledge their love and marry.
VI. WORK
Mary Dee's office. She runs a hectic business staffed entirely by women, where she often works late and arrives early. Mary Dee busies herself with work, issuing orders, as her girls lapse their concentration to fantasize of love. Meanwhile, at Shanty's workplace—where his rank does not match Mary Dee's success—he is cajoled by colleagues to work less and play more. Shanty and Mary Dee have very little time together. One colleague, Mr. Dingle, tempts Shanty to slip off to the pub, at home Mary Dee indicates that she is pregnant.
VII. CRISES
Mary Dee sings to the child inside her, concerned for its future. Shanty arrives home slightly drunk, short-tempered, and demanding dinner. They have row over money and Shanty's feeling of inadequacy. Shanty wounds her by doubting her love and Mary Dee storms out, telling him, as she goes, that she is pregnant. In her blind anger and hurt, she runs in front of a car and is knocked down. In the hospital, a nurse wills her to live as Mary Dee, in delirium, sees the ghosts again. She fights to cling on to the life of her baby as the ghosts try to steal it from her. At her bed Shanty prays, promising to reform if only Mary Dee and the baby are saved.
VIII. PEACE
Shanty sings to his newborn child, celebrating the wonder of being. In a sermon, the preacher sings of the frail magic of family life, as Mary Dee and Shanty pledge a future with their child, together forever, celebrating a love that will now survive.
- Adapted from MPL Communications
“Liverpool Oratorio” Illustration: Aimee Sposito Martini