May your maestros all be gifted and their dispositions sweet
May they and keep a steady beat
May the temperature be 74 and the air be not too dry
May the lighting onstage be not too dim and not too high
May your music be magnificent, and all your troubles small.
May you always find a parking space right behind the hall.
And til the fat lady comes and her aria is sung,
May you stay forever young.
May the players you sit next to be considerate and kind,
May they play as if the two of you possess a single mind,
May they have a sense of humor, may their temperament be jaunty
May they never play largo when the marking says andante
May they always have a pencil, may they have a safety pin.
May they always count the sixty-seven bars til you come in
May you always feel accepted by the folks you sit among,
May you stay forever young
May the soloists be congenial, generous and good
And play the Brahms concerto as you wish you could
May management sell tickets, enough to fill the house
And know why Gustav Mahler is not the same as Johann Strauss.
May they love wealthy widows and the corporate crowd,
Until every single chair is generously endowed.
And every year more lettuce at the orchestra is flung.
May you stay forever young.
May your tours all be first-class, to London, Paris, Rome,
May you not arrive in Prague to find you left your bow at home.
May the hotels be luxurious, tres chic, and enchantee,
With a cafe cross the street and the hall a block away.
May the critics be intelligent, not pretentious and absurd,
And sound as if the show they saw was the same one that you heard,
And may your handsome brow with a laurel crown be hung,
May you stay----forever young.
VERSE OF DYLAN & DOUBLE CHORUS
© Garrison Keillor 2003