The Last Five Years Quotations

The Last Five Years is a one act musical written by Jason Robert Brown and produced off-Broadway in March of 2002. It explores the five-year relationship between Jamie, a rising novelist, and Cathy, a struggling actress.

Jamie plays out the story from the start of the relationship to its end, and Cathy does so in reverse chronological order--their time lines converging and then diverging in the song "The Next Ten Minutes" which depicts their wedding.

Still Hurting

Cathy:What about lies Jamie?
What about things that you swore to be true?
What about you, Jamie?
What about you?

Cathy: Jamie is over and where can I turn?
Covered with scars I did nothing to earn

Cathy: Once the foundation's cracked
And I'm still hurting

Shiksa Goddess

Jamie: I'm breaking my mother's heart
The longer I stand looking at you
The more I hear it splinter and crack
From ninety miles away

Jamie: If you had a tattoo, that wouldn't matter
If you had a shaved head, that would be cool
If you came from Spain or Japan
Or the back of a van
Just as long as you're not from Hebrew school

Jamie: Hey, hey Shiksa goddess
I've been waiting for someone like you

Jamie: My people have suffered for thousands of years
And I don't give a shit!

Jamie:If you had a pierced tongue, that wouldn't matter
If you once were in jail or you once were a man
If your mother and your brother had "relations" with each other
And your father was connected to the Gotti clan
I'd say, "Well, nobody's perfect"

Jamie: If you like to drink blood, I think it's cute

Jamie: I'm your Hebrew slave, at your service

Jamie: I've been waiting for someone
I've been praying for someone
I think that I could be in love with someone like you

See I'm Smiling

Cathy: I stole this sweater from the costume shop
It makes me look like Daisy May

Cathy: I mean, you made it to Ohio
Who knows where else we can go?

Cathy: I think you're really gonna like this show
I'm pretty sure it doesn't suck

Cathy: You know what makes me crazy?
I'm sorry, can I say this -- you know what makes me nuts?

Cathy: No, Jamie, you do not have to go to another party
With the same twenty jerks you already know
You can stay with your wife on her fucking birthday
And you could, God forbid, even see my show

Cathy: Isn't he wonderful, just twenty-eight, the savior of writing

Cathy: I swear to God, I'll never understand
How you can stand there, straight and tall
And see I'm crying and not do anything at all

Moving Too Fast

Jamie: Did I just hear an alarm start ringing,
Did I see sirens go flying past?
Though I don't know what tomorrow's bringin'
I've got a singular impression things are movin' too fast

Jamie: I'm never worried to walk the wire
I won't do anything just half-assed

Jamie: I've got a woman I love
And I found an agent who loves me

Jamie: Some people analyze every detail
Some people stall when they can't see the trail
Some people freeze out of fear that they'll fail
But I keep rolling on
Some people can't get success with their art
Some people never feel love in their heart
Some people can't tell the two things apart

Jamie: The Atlantic Monthly's printing my first chapter
Two thousand bucks without rewriting one word
I left Columbia and I don't regret it
I wrote a book and Sonny Mehta read it

Jamie: And I think well, well, what else is in store?
Got all this and more before twenty-four

A Part of That

Cathy: One day we're just like Leave It To Beaver

Cathy: Then he gets on the mule train to Jamie-land
Handful after handful of Doritos
Circling the apartment, logging miles

Cathy: And how can I complain?
Yes, he's insane, but look what he can do

Cathy: Then he smiles and where else can I go?
I didn't know, the rules do not apply
And then he smiles and nothing else makes sense
While he invents the world that's passing by

Cathy: I'm a part of that... aren't I?

The Schmuel Song

Jamie: "If I only had time," old Schmuel said
"I would build the dress that's in my head
A dress to fire the mad desire
Of girls from here to Minsk"

Jamie: "I should take out my teeth and go to bed
I'm sitting here with talking clocks instead"

Jamie: And sewn into the seams
Were forty-one seasons of dreams
Dreams that you could feel coming real
And that very dress, so the papers swore
Was the dress a girl in Odessa wore
On the day she promised forevermore
To love a young man named Schmuel
Who only one day before
Had knocked at her kitchen door.

Jamie: Plenty have hoped and dreamed and prayed, but they can't get out of Klimovich
If Schmeul had been a cute goyishe maid he'd have looked a lot like you
Maybe it's just that you're afraid to go out on to a limb-ovich
Maybe your heart's completely swayed but your head can't follow through

Jamie: Don't you think that now's a good time to be
The ambitious freak you are?

Jamie: Take a breath, take a step
Take a chance
Take your time
Have I mentioned today how lucky I am
To be in love with you?

A Summer in Ohio

Cathy: But it wouldn't be as nice as a summer in Ohio
Where I'm sharing a room with a "former" stripper
And her snake -- Wayne

Cathy: I could shove an ice pick in my eye
I could eat some fish from last July
But it wouldn't be as awful as a summer in Ohio
Without cable, hot water, Vietnamese food, or you

Cathy: He wants me, he wants me
But he ain't gonna get me

Cathy: Son of a bitch, I guess I'm doing something right

Cathy: Then I get on my knees and pray I can state in my next bio
I'm never gonna go back to Ohio!

Cathy: I could chew on tinfoil for a spell
I can get a root canal in hell
But it wouldn't be as swell as this summer is gonna be

Cathy: Love, the midget, the stripper, Wayne the snake
And Mrs. Jamie Wellerstein
That's me!

The Next Ten Minutes

Jamie: Will you share your life with me
For the next ten minutes?
For the next ten minutes?
We can handle that

Jamie: And if we make it till then
Can I ask you again for another ten?
And if you in turn agree to the next ten minutes
And the next ten minutes 'til the morning comes
Then just holding you might compel me to ask you for more

Cathy: I am not always on time
Please don't expect that from me
I will be late
But if you can just wait
I will make it eventually

Cathy: I could protect and preserve
I could say "no" and "goodbye"
But why, Jamie, why?
I want to be your wife
I want to bear your child
I want to die knowing I had a long, full life in your arms
That I can do
Forever with you

Jamie: Will you share your life with me
For the next ten lifetimes?
For a million summers
Jamie and Cathy: 'Til the world explodes
'Til there's no one left who has ever known us apart?

A Miracle Would Happen/When You Come Home to Me

Jamie: Everyone tells you that the minute you get married
Every other woman in the world suddenly finds you attractive
Well, that's not true
It only affects the kind of women you always wanted to sleep with
But they wouldn't give you the time of day before

Jamie: Except you're sitting there eating your corn beef sandwich
And all of a sudden this pair of breasts walks by
And smiles at you and you're like
"That's not fair"

Jamie: And I'm showing her my left hand
I'm gesticulating with my left hand
And then WHOMP! There's Cathy!
Cause she knows, they always know
And there's that really awkward moment
Where I try to show I wasn't encouraging this
Though of course I sorta was
And I don't want to look whipped in front of this woman
Which is dumb I shouldn't care what she thinks
Since I can't fuck her anyway!

Jamie: And in a perfect world
A miracle would happen
And every girl would look like Mister Ed

Jamie: And I will be there, ripe and crawling
If fucking Random House stops calling

Climbing Uphill

Cathy: I'm up every morning at six
And standing in line with 200 girls who are younger and thinner than me
Who have already been to the gym

Cathy: Why is the director staring at his crotch?
Why is that man staring at my resume?
Don't stare at my resume
I made up half my resume
Look at me, stop looking at that, look at me
No, not at my shoes, don't look at my shoes
I hate these fucking shoes
Why'd I pick these shoes?
Why'd I pick this song?
Why'd I pick this career?
Why does this pianist hate me?

Cathy: Jamie needs his space to write
Since I'm obviously such a horrible, annoying distraction to him
What's he gonna be like when we have kids?

Cathy: Why am I working so hard?
These are the people who cast Linda Blair in a musical
Jesus Christ, I suck, I suck, I suck, I suck!

Cathy: I will not be the girl who requires a man to get by

If I Didn't Believe In You

Jamie: [speaking] Can we have two minutes where you don't contradict everything I say? Can we... Cathy! Please? Two minutes? Then it's your turn. You can say whatever you want.

Jamie: "Is it really about a party, Cathy?
Can we please for a minute stop blaming and say what you feel?"

Jamie: "Did you think this would all be much easier than it's turned out to be?
Well then talk to me Cathy, talk to me"

Jamie: If I didn't believe in you
We wouldn't be having this fight
If I didn't believe in you
I'd walk out the door and say
"Cathy, you're right"

Jamie: "it never took much convincing to make me believe in you"

Jamie: Don't we get to be happy, Cathy?
At some point down the line, don't we get to relax?

Jamie: If I'm cheering on your side, Cathy
Why can't you support mine?

Jamie: No one can give you courage
No one can thicken your skin
I will not fail so you can be comfortable, Cathy
I will not lose because you can't win

Jamie: If I didn't believe in you
Then here's where the travelogue ends

Jamie: This is the life I choose
This is the thing I can't bear to lose
Trip us or trap us but we refuse to fall."
That's what I thought we agreed on, Cathy
If I didn't believe in you
I wouldn't have loved you at all

I Can Do Better Than That

Cathy: [speaking] All right, so we'll be there soon. Are you hungry? Sick of me yet?

Cathy: And I guess he was cute
And I guess he was sweet
And I guess he was good in bed

Cathy: You don't have to get a haircut
You don't have to change your shoes
You don't have to like Duran Duran
Just love me

Nobody Needs to Know

Jamie: Hey kid, good morning, you look like an angel
I don't remember when we fell asleep
We should get up, kid, Cathy is waiting

Jamie: I wrote a story, and we changed the ending

Jamie: Put on my armour, I'm off to Ohio
Back into battle till I don't know when
Swearing to her that I never was with you
And praying I'll hold you again

Jamie: Hold on, clip these wings
Things get out of hand

Jamie: We build a tree house, I keep it from shaking
Little more glue every time that it breaks
Perfectly balanced, and then I start making
Conscious, delibrate mistakes

Jamie: I grip, and she grips, and faster we're sliding
Sliding and spilling, and what can I do
Come back to bed, kid, take me inside you
I promise I won't lie to you

Jamie: Alright, the panic recedes,
Alright, everyone bleeds
Alright, I get what I need
And nobody needs to know

Jamie: And since I have to be in love with someone
Since I need to be in love with someone
Maybe I could be in love with someone like you

Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You

Cathy: Don't kiss me goodbye again
Leave this night clean and quiet
You want the last word, you want me to laugh
But leave it for now.

Cathy: Goodbye until tomorrow
Goodbye until I recall how to breathe
And I have been waiting
I have been waiting for you

Cathy: I open myself
I open myself one stitch at a time
Finally yes, finally now
Finally someone takes me away
Finally free, finally he
Can cut through these strings and open my wings!

Cathy: Goodbye until tomorrow
Goodbye until my feet touch the floor
And I will be waiting
I will be waiting!
Goodbye until tomorrow
Goodbye until the rest of my life

Jamie: It's not about another shrink
It's not about another compromise

Jamie: You never saw how far the crack had opened
You never knew I had run out of rope
And I could never rescue you
All you ever wanted
But I could never rescue you
No matter how I try
All I could do was love you hard and let you go.

Jamie: All I could do was love you
God, I loved you so

Cathy: Goodbye until tomorrow
Goodbye until I crawl to your door

Jamie: You never noticed how the wind had changed
Cathy: Goodbye until tomorrow!
Jamie: I didn't see a way we both could win
Cathy: Goodbye until I'm done thanking God

Cathy: Just close the gate
I'll stand and wait
Jamie
Cathy and Jamie: Goodbye

Quoternity