William Rose - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - Remembering Loving a Woman - and Inter-Racial Marriage lyrics

I have a few things to say and you might just think they're important. This has been a very strange day. I don't think that's putting it too strongly. I might even say it's been an extraordinary day. I've been out there thinking about the day and the way it has gone and it seems to me that now, I need to make a few personal statements. For a variety of reasons. The day began for me when I walked into this house and Tillie said to me -- excuse me -- ...this is Miss Matilda Binks who's been a member of this family for 22 years and who today has been making a great deal of trouble. Sit down, Tillie. Now. The minute I walked into this house this afternoon, Miss Binks said to me, 'Well, all hell's done broke loose now!' I asked her, naturally enough, to what she referred, and she said, 'You'll see.' And I did. Then after some preliminary guessing games, at which I was never very good, it was explained to me by my daughter that she intended to get married. And that her intended was a young man whom I had never met who happened to be a Negro. Well, I think it's fair to say that I responded to this, uh, news, in the same manner that any normal father would respond to it, unless, of course, his daughter happened to be a Negro, too. In a word, I was flabbergasted. And while I was still being flabbergasted, I was informed by my daughter - a very determined young woman much like her mother - that the, uh, marriage was on no matter what her mother and I might feel about it. Then the next rather startling development occurred when you walked in and said that unless we - her mother and I - approved of the marriage, there would be no marriage....(To his daughter) This may be the last chance I'll ever have to tell you to do anything. So I'm telling you, shut up. Now, it became clear that we had one single day in which to make up our minds as to how we felt about this whole situation. So what happened? My wife, typically enough, decided to simply ignore every practical aspect of the situation, and was carried in some kind of romantic haze which made her, in my view, totally inaccessible to anything in the way of reason. Now I have not as yet referred to His Reverence, who began by forcing his way into the situation, and then insulting my intelligence by mouthing 300 platitudes and ending just a half hour ago by coming to my room and challenging me to a wrestling match...Now, Mr. Prentice, clearly a most reasonable man, says he has no wish to offend me, but wants to know if I'm some kind of a nut. And Mrs. Prentice says that like her husband, I'm a burnt-out old shell of a man who cannot even remember what it's like to love a woman the way her son loves my daughter. And strange as it seems, that's the first statement made to me all day with which I am prepared to take issue. Because I think you're wrong. You're as wrong as you can be. I admit that I hadn't considered it, hadn't even thought about it, but I know exactly how he feels about her. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that your son feels for my daughter that I didn't feel for Christina. Old? Yes. Burnt out? Certainly. But I can tell you the memories are still there - clear, intact, indestructible. And they'll be there if I live to be 110. Where John made his mistake, I think, was attaching so much importance to what her mother and I might think. Because in the final an*lysis, it doesn't matter a damn what we think. The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel for each other. And if it's half of what we felt, that's everything. (He gave a loving look toward Christina) (To the young couple) As for you two and the problems you're going to have, they seem almost unimaginable. But you'll have no problem with me. (To John) And I think that uh, when Christina and I and your mother have some time to work on him, you'll have no problem with your father, John. But you do know - I'm sure you know - what you're up against. There'll be a hundred million people right here in this country who'll be shocked and offended and appalled at the two of you. And the two of you will just have to ride that out. Maybe every day for the rest of your lives. You can try to ignore those people or you can feel sorry for them and for their prejudices and their bigotry and their blind hatreds and stupid fears. But where necessary, you'll just have to cling tight to each other and say screw all those people! Anybody could make a case, and a hell of a good case, against your getting married. The arguments are so obvious that nobody has to make them. But you're two wonderful people who happened to fall in love and happen to have a pigmentation problem. And I think that now no matter what kind of a case some ba*tard could make against your getting married, there would be only one thing worse. And that would be if - knowing what you two are, knowing what you two have, and knowing what you two feel - you didn't get married. Well, Tillie, when the hell are we gonna get some dinner?