The Man I Used to Be (From the Count of Monte Cristo)

I've seen a thousand wonders I've lived a hundred lifetimes But not until this moment Have miracles seemed real As fleeting as a shadow The time goes by unnoticed The hate that drove me forward Is gone, and I am face to face with The man I used to be Dreams I dared to dream When love was all, the innocence of youth Like memories of truth return to learn forgiveness The man I used to be cannot be outrun Albert still lives, whatever else I've done Forever in his eyes, she'll see The man who I used to be And all the years will melt away The nights will be much softer now, for All the pain is gone Hope is what moves on I will be there, as near as her next prayer As merciful as sweet redemption Once blind, now I see Once a slave, I'm free Give me a star, to home would guide my heart To resurrect a part of me The man that I used to be [FRANK W.:] Thomas Borchert You know, as a composer you write these things And I write them at home, and I sing them And it's kind of funny, 'cause I sing terrible And, you know, you dream of always having that perfect moment When you have the great singer, wearing the right thing, in the perfect lightning With a beautiful orchestra and a great maestro conducting it, and Today—tonight is kind of like a dream come true, it's just wonderful They say in New York, in the Theatre World, that In the spring of 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a small little book called "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" And that, a week later, myself and Leslie Bricusse started working on the show It seemed that it took a long time to get to Broadway But it's alive and well, and in fact, in the next couple of years, you'll see it revived on Broadway When Leslie and I were working on the show, a bunch of extraordinary things happened to us And probably the most was, uh—before there was a TV show, 'American Idol' Used to be called 'Star Search' And in '88-'89, which was a year of so many things that happened, which I'll tell you about later This amazing girl from a small town in Minnesota, whose family is from here She kept there winning every week, so I got to see her on TV all the time and It was hard not to fall in love with her then Anyway, Leslie and I heard her, and we decided to create the role of Lucy in "Jekyll & Hyde" for her I know this is a special night for her, her family is here, and it's the first time So many of her family will get to see her perform So from "Jekyll & Hyde", the song is 'Bring on the Men' Linda Eder