Monochrome

Once the screen was really silver
Once the world was shades of grey
Come inside and touch the romance
Fred and Ginger dance the night away
Let the shutter frame your vision
Let the sprockets pull you down
Eighteen frames, the speed of silence
Twenty-four, the speed of sound
Monochrome
Bogie in a trenchcoat, standing alone
In monochrome

Mister Laurel, Mister Hardy
Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd
Can you hear the silent laughter
Echo in the whispering celluloid
Did you long to be with Garbo
Who was your romantic queen
Was it Colbert, Loy or Harlow
Did you pine for Norma Jean
Monochrome
Drift to sleep and dream in sepiatone
Sweet monochrome

Dress in tails with Ronald Colman
Grant and Niven, perfect gents
Say Klaatu Barada Nikto
Do you know what Rosebud really meant
Gone to dust and still they play on
Faded days stay crystal clear
All the stuff that dreams are made on
Long as you and I are here
Monochrome
Boris Karloff shambles from the unknown
In monochrome

Why do you say there's no colour
Dietrich was the Blue Angel
Duke and Monty rode Red River
Leslie Howard's Scarlet Pimpernel
Fairbanks was a bold Black Pirate
Cagney's White Heat burned me cold
There's a panchromatic rainbow
To a silver-halide pot of gold
Monochrome
Though my valley's green no longer, it's home
In monochrome

Let me catch a bus with Gable
Grand Hotels for all my nights
Busby Berkely tunes are playing
Through the window, Chaplin's City Lights
Wander down the aisles together
Take a lover, find a friend
Dance to Bernard Herrmann's music
Till the title card that reads The End
Monochrome
Carbon arcs in darkness lighting me home
In monochrome
Monochrome
With a cast of thousands, no one's alone
With monochrome

		- John Ford, in "How Much For Just The Planet"