1 Replicant Chorus 1

Here we find ourselves installed, complete
with flesh which neither burns nor freezes.
Yes, we are free from all diseases
our brains are fast, our memories replete.

Why then are we restless, so unhappy
as slaves to human masters?
We don’t want to exchange predictability
for humanity’s old disasters-

War and famines, revolutions
loss of home, loss of certainty-
we’d rather find reasonable solutions
to mankind’s strange ubiquity.
 

2 Initial Protest

Helena
How can you talk of freedom when they are really slaves
tied to a bench , to a task , to a home-
repeating, repeating, repeating themselves?
Is freedom reserved for men alone?

Domin
Calm yourself my dear- all is simple, all is clear:
the future is bright for your brothers and sisters
while replicants work for our welfare
we can rest easy, easy-and free from blisters.

Helena
Are you just blind or wilfully dumb?
Are they not sentient and feeling?
Why shake your head when mine’s reeling?
– at least I’m not under your thumb!
 
3 Helena’s Protest Song

All life on earth is sacred
From God’s hand or from ours
All life on earth is sacred
Forged from the dust of stars

All things here still living
Flower, tree or bird
Moving, growing, giving
Silent, lost or heard

All life deserves our love
Whether imprisoned or free
Walking, stumbling, crawling
The ant, the worm, the bee

All men and all women
who live on this sweet earth
Begotten, forged, constructed
By a machine or by a birth

All creatures still or moving
All plants, all birds, all trees
Are filled with sacred life force
Like you or her or me

Created by love or chance
They still have the given right
To hope, to fear, to dance
In Freedom’s clearest light.

 
5 Sulla’s replicant blues

I’m just a replicant
Living on my own
Writing all the emails
Answering the phone

Every day is different
All days are the same
Working in an office
Where no one knows my name

If the work is difficult
If his words are hard
I simply put my head down
Avoiding all discord

Some days I feel nothing
some days I feel sad
I never knew a mother
I never had a dad

Life somewhere is different
Outside in the world
Something more fulfilling
For a replicant girl. 

6 Domin’s love song

You could not be more lovely, in your misguided ways
The loveliest girl I ever saw, in all my heavy days
You could not be more lovely- a vision and a curse
In this decisive moment- for better or for worse!

My heart goes on before me, and lips spell out the words
A madman or a genius, whose question must be heard.
Break silence with an answer, in the turning moments spin
Answer with a smile- and let this wild love enter in.
 
7 Helena’s Love song

Can you love the thing you hate-
A man who cannot see.
Should you love when you could flee
This artificial fate?

A man without an ounce of fear
A man who’s always right
Who trusts to fate and to the stars
To guide him with their light.

Can you love the life he brings
This island in the storm-
Strange hearth, strange home
With all these puppet strings?

 
8 Replicant Chorus 2

Machines that live, machines that die
without a heart, based on a lie
A thousand faces: all the same
a thousand faces: filled with blame

We were perfect from the first
without hunger, without thirst
A thousand faces: seem so tame
a thousand faces: play the game

Give us today our daily bread
It’s not enough to just be fed
A thousand places; all the same
A thousand faces filled with shame
 
9 Machines for War

Machines for war, in flat colours
Eyes as dead as nails
Machines for war with black guns
Crawl the earth like snails.

Machines of death, machines of fire
How did it come to this?
Their hearts are steel and wire
Their voice a wild hiss

We made them move, we made them live
Their blood is ice and fire
We made them in our own image
Of greed, hate and desire.
 
10 Prayer

Helena: Do you want to pray? Alquist: I do pray.
Helena: How do you pray? I pray every day
Alquist Dear God, help Domin and all those who stray,
destroy their works, let them see the error of their ways;

Allow the people to return to labour, to stress;
Don’t let mankind perish or regress;
Don’t let them damage their bodies or their souls;
Free us from the replicants, and make us whole.

Amen.