From the recording Swedish Style - The Musical Concept Album
Paparazzi Song (Press)
The next morning, Karla leaves a message for Rita expressing faux sorrow over the label’s decision that Rita has lost the lead vocal. But Rita has the last laugh: At a meeting with the honchos, she offers to pay for Opus 10’s publicity, promotion and marketing in light of the group’s image woes—as long as they return the lead vocal to her… The album comes out two months later and while fans embrace it, critics massacre the effort.
Lyrics
PART 1: SANTA LUCIA
(A chorus of young children stroll around Stockholm, carrying candles and singing Santa Lucia. A group of paparazzi watch them with cynical interest.)
Swedish Traditional Song
PART 2: PAPARAZZIS SONG
Paparazzi:
Real life, hard facts, flesh and blood,
The story’s never what it seems.
We exhort you to be a skeptic,
Keep an eye out for extremes.
Christmas spirit’s in the air
And the world takes on a new glow,
But the by-word of paparazzi
Is that you can never know
When you think he’s grand,
Your hero’s called to stand
Trial with charges pages long.
The news is a week old,
All copies have been sold,
When they find they’ve been wrong.
(They bring out a Clipping proclaiming that “Rita is messed up”.)
Not very long ago, we said they would break,
Criticized and said they’d lost
To the end of their youth’s love and friendship,
But then appeared OPUS10’s ghost.
(While some of the paparazzi continue dancing, the others remove the garment of the Clipping and replace it by a new one about the success of OPUS10’s new album, Visitors. They leave the old garment at a corner of the stage.)
Real life, hard facts, flesh and blood,
We could use a few fairy tales,
It’s on dreams that hope needs feeding,
And on dreams the heart regales.
Christmas spirit’s in the air
And the world takes on a new glow,
But the by-word of paparazzi
Is that you can never know.
Now we must confess
They’re no longer a mess,
Their new album is first-class
It made us change tones
But we’ll still throw our stones,
Their castle’s made of glass.
A certain masterpiece,
Sold out, then released,
It’s so nice to have them back.
They’re in very good shape, we can’t deny it,
We’ll wait for them to go slack.
Real life, hard facts, flesh and blood,
We could use a few fairy tales,
It’s on dreams that hope needs feeding,
And on dreams the heart regales.
Christmas spirit’s in the air
And the world takes on a new glow,
But the by-word of paparazzi
Is that you can never know.
(Blackout, except for a single spot on the discarded clipping costume.)