The Gotham City Music Collective presents
Spring 2025 Choral Showcase
PS 198 ISIDOR & IDA STRAUS SCHOOL
29 MAY 2025
Program Leaflet
Additional Notes on Repertoire
by Performance Order
I Sing Because I’m Happy
Vois Sur Ton Chemin
Somewhere Only We Know
When I’m Sixty-Four
Someone to Watch Over Me
Rhapsody for Clarinet
Me and Julio Down by the School Yard
Jing-ga-lye-ya
A Million Dreams
Let the River Run
I Sing Because I’m Happy
by Charles H. Gabriel. Arranged by Kenneth Paden and Rollo Dilworth. Lyrics by Civilla D. Martin.
A reinterpretation of the Gospel staple His Eye is on the Sparrow. Martin wrote the original in 1905, and it has been made famous over and over by the likes of Ethel Waters, Mahalia Jackson, Whitney Houston, Lauryn Hill, and Tanya Blount.
I sing because I’m happy
I sing because I’m free
His eye is on the sparrow
And I know he watches me
I’m so happy, yes!
I’m so happy, yes I am!
Vois Sur Ton Chemin
by Bruno Coulais and Christophe Barratier.
From the 2004 film Les Choristes. “Look to Your Path” may be known to many as a techno remix that charted number one in the 2023 German pop charts.
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Somewhere Only We Know
by Keane.
From alt-rock band Keane’s 2004 debut album Hopes and Fears.
I walked across an empty land
I knew the pathway like the back of my hand
I felt the earth beneath my feet
Sat by the river and it made me completeOh, simple thing, where have you gone?
I’m getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you’re gonna let me in
I’m getting tired and I need somewhere to beginI came across a fallen tree
I felt the branches of it looking at me
Is this the place we used to love?
Is this the place that I’ve been dreaming of?Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?
I’m getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you’re gonna let me in
I’m getting tired and I need somewhere to beginAnd if you have a minute, why don’t we go
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything
So why don’t we go somewhere only we know?
Somewhere only we knowOh, simple thing, where have you gone?
I’m getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you’re gonna let me in
I’m getting tired and I need somewhere to beginAnd if you have a minute, why don’t we go
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything
So why don’t we go? So why don’t we go?Ooh-ooh-ooh
Oh-oh-ohThis could be the end of everything
So why don’t we go somewhere only we know?
Somewhere only we know
Somewhere only we know
When I’m Sixty-Four
by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. Arranged by Tom Gentry.
First released on the Beatles’ 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
When I get older, losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I’d been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four?Oooh, you’ll be older too (Aaaah)
And if you say the word
I could stay with youI could be handy mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four?Every summer, we can rent a cottage
In the Isle of Wight, if it’s not too dear
We shall scrimp and save (We shall scrimp and save)
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck, and DaveSend me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away
Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four? Woo
Someone to Watch Over Me
by George and Ira Gershwin. Arranged by Jay Althouse.
Written for the musical Oh, Kay! More than 1,800 recordings of the song have been released by artists of every stripe, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Sinéad O’Connor, Willie Nelson, and Amy Winehouse among them.
There’s a saying old, says that love is blind
Still, we’re often told, “Seek and ye shall find”
So I’m going to seek a certain lad I’ve had in mind
Looking everywhere, haven’t found him yet
He’s the big affair I cannot forget
Only man I ever think of with regret
I’d like to add his initial to my monogram
Tell me, where is the shepherd for this lost lamb?There’s a somebody I’m longing to see
I hope that he
Turns out to be
Someone who’ll watch over me
I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the wood
I know I could
Always be good
To one who’ll watch over me
Although he may not be the man some
Girls think of as handsome
To my heart he carries the key
Won’t you tell him, please, to put on some speed
Follow my lead?
Oh, how I need
Someone to watch over me
Rhapsody for Clarinet
by Wilson Osborne.
Composed as a bassoon study in 1958, it remains the best known work of American composer Willson Osborne.
Me and Julio Down by the School Yard
by Paul Simon.
Released in 1972, Simon makes many references to his childhood in Queens, N.Y.
The mama pajama rolled out of bed
And she ran to the police station
When the papa found out, he began to shout
And he started the investigationIt’s against the law, it was against the law
What the mama saw, it was against the lawThe mama looked down and spit on the ground
Every time my name gets mentioned
The papa said “Oy, if I get that boy
I’m gonna stick him in the house of detention”Well I’m on my way
I don’t know where I’m going
I’m on my way
I’m taking my time but I don’t know where
Goodbye to Rosie, the Queen of Corona
See you, me and Julio down by the schoolyard
See you, me and Julio down by the schoolyardWoah, in a couple of days, they come and take me away
But the press let the story leak
Now when the radical priest come to get me released
We was all on the cover of NewsweekAnd I’m on my way
I don’t know where I’m going
I’m on my way
I’m taking my time but I don’t know where
Goodbye to Rosie, the Queen of Corona
See you, me and Julio down by the schoolyard
Jing-ga-lye-ya
by Bruce Sled.
The lyrics are beautiful, rhythmic, and compelling. They are also largely nonsense syllables.
Ji bu li, ji bu li, ji bu li
Jing-ga-lye-ya
Hello, hello, Marion, high up a na carry on
Where, o where, o did you go?
A Million Dreams
by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Arranged by Mac Huff.
From 2017 film The Greatest Showman dramatizing the life of circus kingpin P. T. Barnum, apocryphally attributed with the adage “there’s a sucker born every minute.”
I close my eyes and I can see
A world that’s waiting up for me
That I call my own
Through the dark, through the door
Through where no one’s been before
But it feels like homeThey can say, they can say it all sounds crazy
They can say, they can say I’ve lost my mind
I don’t care, I don’t care, so call me crazy
We can live in a world that we design‘Cause every night I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keepin’ me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it’s gonna take
Oh, a million dreams for the world we’re gonna makeThere’s a house we can build
Every room inside is filled
With things from far away
Special things I compile
Each one there to make you smile
On a rainy day
Let the River Run
by Carly Simon. Arranged by Craig Hella Johnson.
Simon wrote, composed, and performed this number as the main theme of Working Girl in 1988, earning Simon an Oscar, Golden Globe, and Grammy in one fell swoop. As of 2025 only 16 songs have won this “Triple Crown” of awards. Simon says she pieced the lyrics together from the script and the poetry of Whitman and Blake.
Let the river run,
let all the dreamers
wake the nation.Come, the New Jerusalem.
Silver cities rise,
the morning lights
the streets that meet them,
and sirens
call them on
with a song.It’s asking for the taking.
Trembling, shaking.
Oh, my heart is aching.We’re coming to the edge,
running on the water,
coming through the fog,
your sons and daughters.Let the river run,
let all the dreamers
wake the nation.Come, the New Jerusalem.