Hair

What A Piece Of Work Is Man

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What A Piece Of Work Is Man Lyrics

What a piece of work is man
How noble in reason
How infinite in faculties
In form and moving
How express and admirable
In action how like an angel
In apprehension how like a god
The beauty of the world
The paragon of animals

I have of late
But wherefore I know not
Lost all my mirth
This goodly frame
The earth
Seems to me a sterile promontory
This most excellent canopy
The air-- look you!
This brave o'erhanging firmament
This majestical roof
Fretted with golden fire
Why it appears no other thing to me
Than a foul and pestilent congregation
Of vapors

What a piece of work is man
How noble in reason

How dare they try to end this beauty?
How dare they try to end this beauty?

Walking in space
We find the purpose of peace
The beauty of life
You can no longer hide

Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Wide wide wide!

Submitted by

fallacies On Jun 20, 2002

The Flesh Failures / Let The Sun Shine In

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fallacies

Submitter

2002-06-20 20:51:32

1 Meaning

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by penny_fresca

16y ago

This is one of my favorite parts of the musical. It questions how people can have such negative intent- both killing fellow man and the earth. The lyrics- "How dare they try to end this beauty?" stand out most. After seeing Hair performed, that was one of the lines that stuck out and stood in my mind. The line seems to summarize the horrors of some human tendencies(war, destruction, etc.), the importance of war-resistance, and the fact that we live on a wonder in itself.

That sounds a bit more pretentious than I intended, but oh well...

This song is amazing.

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