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| "Prologue: What Have I Done?" | |
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Colm Wilkinson "Soliloquy ( What have i done)" Les Miserables 10th anniversary edition
"Prologue: What Have I Done?" is the fourth and final song in the Prologue. It is sung by Jean Valjean. This takes part in 1815, Digne. After Valjean is forgiven by the Bishop, and he decides to take another path in life, tearing up his identification card and taking up a new alias.
This song is also known as "Valjean's Soliloquy" in the 2012 Film.
The lyrics were written by Herbert Kretzmer.
Lyrics[]
Valjean:
What have I done?
Sweet Jesus, what have I done?
Become a thief in the night,
Become a dog on the run.
And have I fallen so far
And is the hour so late,
That nothing remains but the cry of my hate?
The cries in the dark that nobody hears.
Here where I stand at the turning of the years?
If there’s another way to go,
I missed it twenty long years ago.
My life was a war that could never be won.
They gave me a number and murdered Valjean.
When they chained me and left me for dead
Just for stealing a mouthful of bread.
Yet why did I allow that man
To touch my soul and teach me love?
He treated me like any other.
He gave me his trust,
He called me Brother.
My life he claims for God above.
Can such things be?
For I had come to hate the world.
This world that always hated me!
Take an eye for an eye.
Turn your heart into stone.
This is all I have lived for.
This is all I have known!
One word from him and I'd be back,
Beneath the lash, upon the rack.
Instead, he offers me my freedom.
I feel my shame inside me like a knife.
He told me that I have a soul.
How does he know?
What spirit comes to move my life?
Is there another way to go?
I am reaching, but I fall,
And the night is closing in,
And I stare into the void,
To the whirlpool of my sin.
I’ll escape now from the world,
From the world of Jean Valjean.
Jean Valjean is nothing now!
Another story must begin!
[Valjean tears up his yellow ticket.]
Videos[]
Valjean's Soliloquy - Les Miserables (Film)