From the recording Swedish Style - The Musical Concept Album
No Space For U-Turns (Rita)
All the money spent for publicity and marketing doesn’t save the album from ultimately failing to equal the Opus 10’s previous efforts. The label attempts to convince the group to contribute capital for a world tour. With Rita’s fortune spent, she declines… and to top the disillusionment, she discovers that it was Karla who made up rumors of her drinking. She retreats to a Latin tavern to dance away her tears and fears and sings, “Life is a road, it is broad, but there is no space for U-turns.”
Lyrics
PART 3: NO SPACE FOR U-TURNS
On the future’s brink,
Something makes you shrink,
With a start you realize your ideals are gone in a blink
The dream is over.
At your triumph’s edge,
You will start to hedge,
You will speak of details, look for the thin end of the wedge,
And you will cower.
(She goes into a pub, where young people are welcoming the new year with toasts and dance.)
Fear is a fact, you may act in line with your human nature,
Part of every creature wants to go back home
To where he started from.
Life is a road, it is broad, but there is no space for U-turns,
No matter how your fear burns, in your heart you know,
Forward’s the way to go.
Cheated by a friend,
My financial end
Looming closer, love in splinters and I know it won’t mend,
The dream is over.
At my triumph’s verge,
Enemies emerge.
I feel like a bride abandoned on the threshold of the church,
I lost my dower.
Fear is a fact, you may act in line with your human nature,
Part of every creature wants to go back home
To where he started from.
Life is a road, it is broad, but there is no space for U-turns,
No matter how your fear burns, in your heart you know,
Forward’s the way to go.
(The youngsters urge Rita to dance with them. She declines. One young man is very insistent, alarming her.)
Rita:
Fear is a fact, you may act in line with your human nature,
Part of every creature wants to go back home
To where he started from.
Life is a road, it is broad, but there is no space for U-turns,
No matter how your fear burns, in your heart you know,
Forward’s the way to go.
(She starts learning dance steps from the young people around her.)