When You’re Driving Through the Moonlight

Rodgers & HammersteinCinderella

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When You’re Driving Through the Moonlight

Lyrics By Oscar Hammerstein II  Music By Richard Rodgers

Once at home, as the stepsisters and stepmother describe the ball they had attended, Cinderella imagines what it must have been like. Does she know it a little too well?

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“When You’re Driving Through the Moonlight” LYRICS

Cinderella:
When you’re driving through the moonlight on the highway,
When you’re driving through the moonlight to the dance,
You are breathless with a wild anticipation
Of adventure and excitement and romance.

Then at last you see the towers of the palace
Silhouetted on the sky above the park,
And below them is a row of lighted windows,
Like a lovely diamond necklace in the dark!

Portia:
It looks that way—

Joy:
The way you say.

Stepmother:
She talks as if she knows.

Cinderella:
I do not know
These things are so.
I only just suppose…

I suppose that when you come into the ballroom,
And the room itself is floating in the air,
If you’re suddenly confronted by His Highness
You are frozen like a statue on the stair!

You’re afraid he’ll hear the way your heart is beating
And you know you mustn’t make the first advance.
You are seriously thinking of retreating—
Then you seem to hear him asking you to dance!

You make a bow,
A timid bow,
And shyly answer “Yes.”

Stepmother:
How would you know
That this is so?

Cinderella:
I do no more than guess.

Joy and Portia:
You can guess till you’re blue in the face
But you can’t even picture such a man.

Joy:
He is more than a prince—

Portia:
He’s an ace!

Cinderella:
But sisters, I really think I can—

Stepmother: [spoken]
Can what?

Cinderella:
I think that I can picture such a man.

Joy and Portia:
He is tall—

Cinderella:
And straight as a lance!

Joy and Portia:
And his hair—

Cinderella:
Is dark and wavy.

Joy and Portia:
His eyes—

Cinderella:
Can melt you with a glance!

Joy and Portia:
He can turn a girl to gravy!