[Mike is sitting on a stool with a guitar. The lights are down.]

Mike: [singing] Once upon a time ago, I can still remember how
            those stories used to make me smile
      And I knew if I had my chance, I could make the language
            dance
      And maybe I'd be published for a while
      But summer faded into winter and discontent began to enter
      Bad posts on the usenet, I couldn't stand one more set
      I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed
            bride
      But something touched me deep inside the day the Great Books
            died

      So bye bye, modernism, good bye
      It was finished, was diminished on that day in July
      When my old man, drinking whiskey and rye
      Said that this'll be the day that I die; this'll be the day
            that I die

      Did you write the books we love and have you lost faith in
            God above
      Like all the sad young men I know
      Are you for whom the old bell tolls? Can literature save our
            mortal souls
      And can you teach me how to dance real slow
      Well I know that you're in love with Joyce, cause I heard
            you talkin' with his voice
      You both kicked off your shoes, and I dig that Langston
            Hughes
      I was a lonely teenage too well read, with a soliloquy
            inside my head
      But I knew I had been misled the day the Great Books died

      I started singin': Bye bye, modernism, good bye
      It was finished, was diminished on that day in July
      When my old man, drinking whiskey and rye
      Said that this'll be the day that I die; this'll be the day
            that I die

      Now for decades we've been on our own and moss grows
            fat on a rolling stone
      But that's not how it was before
      When the Jester sang for the King of New in a poem from
            nineteen twenty two
      In a voice sprung from the seeds of war
      And while the King was being tried, the Jester stood there
            by his side
      The court room was adjourned; no verdict was returned
      And while the King was hospitalized, the Jester took the
            Nobel Prize
      And we sang dirges and despised the day the Great Books died

      We were singin': Bye bye, modernism, good bye
      It was finished, was diminished on that day in July
      When my old man, drinking whiskey and rye
      Said that this'll be the day that I die; this'll be the day
            that I die

      In there they were all in one place, a generation lost in
            space
      With one chance left to start again
      With cunning, silence and exile, the players tried to adapt
            a style
      With the Jester on the sidelines with a pen
         Now the Paris air was sweet perfume while the Germans played
            a marching tune
      We all got up to write, but we never got to fight
      Cause Virginia took her life instead, and James Joyce passed
            away in bed
      And Europe's fields o'erran with red the day the music died

      We started singin': Bye bye, modernism, good bye
      It was finished, was diminished on that day in July
      When my old man, drinking whiskey and rye
      Said that this'll be the day that I die; this'll be the day
            that I die

      Helter skelter, in the summer swelter, a man lay dead in a
            country shelter
      One more gone and falling fast--
      I was moved, to say the least, as I read his final feast
      A testimony to the past--
      And as I turned his final page my hands were clenched in
            fists of rage
      No angel born in hell could break that author's spell
      And as the flames climbed high into the night to light the
            sacrificial rite
      I saw Satan laughing with delight, the day the music died

      He was singin': Bye bye, modernism, good bye
      It was finished, was diminished on that day in July
      When my old man, drinking whiskey and rye
      Said that this'll be the day that I die; this'll be the day
            that I die

      I saw a girl who sang the blues, and I watched her as she
            read the news
      "Thirty years ago today
      An author suff'ring from a block brought about by
            electroshock
      Took a gun and blew himself away"
      And in the streets the readers dreamed, the authors cried
            and the poets screamed
      But not a word was spoken, the church bells all were broken
      And the three men I admire most: the Father, Son, and Holy
            Ghost
      They'd caught the last train for the coast, the day the
            Great Books died

      And they were singin': Bye bye, modernism, good bye
      It was finished, was diminished on that day in July
      When my old man, drinking whiskey and rye
      Said that this'll be the day that I die; this'll be the day
            that I die
      They were singin': Bye bye, modernism, good bye
      It was finished, was diminished on that day in July
      When my old man, drinking whiskey and rye
      Said that this'll be the day that I die; this'll be the day
            that I die

Mike: [spoken] We'll be right back.

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