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"Down There"
Written by Matt Plotecher (mplot@freenet.columbus.oh.us)
To the tune of "Out There" from _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_.
  Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, music by Alan Menken.
Copyright: 1997 by Matt Plotecher. Distribute freely, but do
  not modify. Originally posted 2/19/97.
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"Down There"

  (The setting: My dream of working down in the animation
   department at Walt Disney World. The Dean of my college
   does not want to lose my tuition, and tries to convince
   me to stay in Ohio.)

DEAN: Their jobs are few
      Their jobs are scarce
      They take only the best from this whole country
      It makes them the best
      I who know who, teach you, must now tell you
      I who look upon your drawings sneer
      You can't be serious, boy, hell you
      Need to stay Midwest
      It's for the best
      (Remember what I told you, young Plotecher)

DEAN: You are a dreamer             MATT: I am a dreamer
      And you are strange                 And I am strange
      And these are traits
      Animators
      Put on par with mange
      You are not qualified               You say I have no pride
      Down there they'll label you
      As a student                        I am a student...
      Down there they will point
      And laugh and sneer                 Only a student...
      Why subject yourself to
      Humiliation?
      Stay up here
      And enroll to me                    I'll enroll
      Your soul to me                     My soul
      Heed well your peers
      And fears
      Spend years For years
      Up here I'm here

MATT: Safe inside this college with this professor that drones
      Thinking of the Disney I strive towards
      All my life I watch them with this craving in my bones
      Hungry to meet the storyteller lords
      All my life I refer to their features
      Watching films and studying storyboards
      All my life I aim at getting that internship
      Not slave labor
      I endeavor

      For down there
      Working in the sun
      Give me one job down there
      Any single one
      An Inbetweener
      Down there
      Which department I don't care
      Errand boy
      Would be fair
      For the joy of work down there

      Down there among the inkers and the painters and their scenes
      Through the cels and layouts I can meet them
      All around the staff and cast and Xerox that sheens
      Headlong I would plunge in to greet them
      If I was writing songs
      Should they last quite this long? Hmmm.

      Down there
      Composing a score
      Clean up a rough
      Down there
      As a director
      Who daily works in town there
      By the producer
      I swear
      At that resort
      Each rules fair
      Ev'ry sort
      Shave my hair?
      No retort
      I don't care
      What's import?
      That job
      Down there