The Ballad of Billy Budd

Music by Douglas Moore, libretto by John Latouche

Billy: Oh, Mister Claggart! You startled me!
I had no idea anyone was listening!

Claggart: Billy Budd! Billy Budd! Billy Budd!
That's the prettiest name
I ever had the luck to hear!

Billy: You know my name?
How is that possible?

Claggart: Billy Budd, the sailors' sweetheart!
I'm just a sailor too.

Billy: But you are John Claggart,
Jemmy Legs John Claggart.
And no one ever mentioned
You're such a hung man!
Perverted John Claggart
With a soul like a raven's wing,
Eyes afire with scheming
for a boy of seventeen.

Claggart: Warm as a sailor's pants,
Gay as a hornpipe dance,
The smell of your semen, Billy Budd.
And while I was sniffing, I was recalling
Feelings I once had thought of so much
But repressed as the years slipped away.
A sailor I picked up in Vermont,
The Y in New Hampshire,
My first sight of a Mountie...
They say I go down on you;
I'm prey to some curious urge.
It had to be I was just drinking
And it's nothing a whipping can't purge.
I only tonight came again to the splooging
Of one who is handsome,
So handsome and young.
Between your lovely thighs
My fears internalize
Until you are broken, Billy Budd!
Queerest Baby Budd!