Lyrics Epilogue: Ragtime (Reprise) / Wheels of a Dream (Reprise) - Ragtime Orchestra

The era of Ragtime had run out
As if history were no more than a tune on a player piano
But we did not know that, then

After Coalhouse Walker's death
Younger brother drove south to Mexico
Where he joined the great peasant revolutionary
Emiliano Zapata

(La, la-la-la-la)

The signs of the coming World War were everywhere
The anarchist Emma Goldman was arrested again
Of course
But this time she would be deported, as well

(Ooh)

Booker T Washington's Tuskegee Institute
Became, in time, the center of Black America
When he died, flags were flown at half-mast
President and Mrs Wilson attended his funeral

(La, la-la-la-la)

Grandfather resided now in a cemetery
At last, peace and quiet

The passionate and beautiful Evelyn Nesbitt
Would lose her looks and fall into obscurity
Wee!

Harry Houdini was hanging upside-down
High over Times Square
When the Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Was assassinated in Sarajevo

("Warn the Duke!,") a little boy's words suddenly rang clear
To the great illusionist
It would be the one genuine mystical experience of his life
But it was too late
The world was already at war!

When the Lusitania was torpedoed by a U-Boat
Off the southwest coast of Ireland during the Great War
Twelve-hundred men, women, and children lost their lives
And among them, Father

Mother wore black for a year
At the end of this time, Tateh proposed
And she accepted
She adored him

They moved to California
They were now a family
They felt blessed

One afternoon, watching his children play
Tateh had an idea for a movie!
A bunch of children!
White, black, Christian, Jew, rich, poor, all kinds!
A gang, a crazy gang, getting into trouble, getting out of trouble
But together, despite their differences
He was sure it would make a wonderful movie
A dream of what this country could be!
He would be first in line to see it!

I see his face
I hear his heartbeat
I look in those eyes
How wise they seem!
Well, when he is old enough
I will show him America
And he will ride
Our son will ride
On the wheels of a dream!