The Last Five Years is a one act musical written by Jason Robert Brown and produced off-Broadway in March of 2002. It explores the five-year relationship between Jamie, a rising novelist, and Cathy, a struggling actress.

Jamie plays out the story from the start of the relationship to its end, and Cathy does so in reverse chronological order--their time lines converging and then diverging in the song "The Next Ten Minutes" which depicts their wedding.

Still Hurting

• Cathy:What about lies Jamie?
  What about things that you swore to be true?
  What about you, Jamie?
  What about you?

• Cathy: Jamie is over and where can I turn?
  Covered with scars I did nothing to earn

• Cathy: Once the foundation's cracked
  And I'm still hurting

Shiksa Goddess

• Jamie: I'm breaking my mother's heart
  The longer I stand looking at you
  The more I hear it splinter and crack
  From ninety miles away

• Jamie: If you had a tattoo, that wouldn't matter
  If you had a shaved head, that would be cool
  If you came from Spain or Japan
  Or the back of a van
  Just as long as you're not from Hebrew school
  

• Jamie: Hey, hey Shiksa goddess
  I've been waiting for someone like you

• Jamie: My people have suffered for thousands of years
  And I don't give a shit!

• Jamie:If you had a pierced tongue, that wouldn't matter
  If you once were in jail or you once were a man
  If your mother and your brother had "relations" with each other
  And your father was connected to the Gotti clan
  I'd say, "Well, nobody's perfect"

• Jamie: If you like to drink blood, I think it's cute

• Jamie: I'm your Hebrew slave, at your service

• Jamie: I've been waiting for someone
  I've been praying for someone
  I think that I could be in love with someone like you

See I'm Smiling

• Cathy: I stole this sweater from the costume shop
  It makes me look like Daisy May

• Cathy: I mean, you made it to Ohio
  Who knows where else we can go?

• Cathy: I think you're really gonna like this show
  I'm pretty sure it doesn't suck

• Cathy: You know what makes me crazy?
  I'm sorry, can I say this -- you know what makes me nuts?

• Cathy: No, Jamie, you do not have to go to another party
  With the same twenty jerks you already know
  You can stay with your wife on her fucking birthday
  And you could, God forbid, even see my show

• Cathy: Isn't he wonderful, just twenty-eight, the savior of writing

• Cathy: I swear to God, I'll never understand
  How you can stand there, straight and tall
  And see I'm crying and not do anything at all

Moving Too Fast

• Jamie: Did I just hear an alarm start ringing,
  Did I see sirens go flying past?
  Though I don't know what tomorrow's bringin'
  I've got a singular impression things are movin' too fast

• Jamie: I'm never worried to walk the wire
  I won't do anything just half-assed

• Jamie: I've got a woman I love
  And I found an agent who loves me

• Jamie: Some people analyze every detail
  Some people stall when they can't see the trail
  Some people freeze out of fear that they'll fail
  But I keep rolling on
  Some people can't get success with their art
  Some people never feel love in their heart
  Some people can't tell the two things apart

• Jamie: The Atlantic Monthly's printing my first chapter
  Two thousand bucks without rewriting one word
  I left Columbia and I don't regret it
  I wrote a book and Sonny Mehta read it

• Jamie: And I think well, well, what else is in store?
  Got all this and more before twenty-four

A Part of That

• Cathy: One day we're just like Leave It To Beaver

• Cathy: Then he gets on the mule train to Jamie-land
  Handful after handful of Doritos
  Circling the apartment, logging miles

• Cathy: And how can I complain?
  Yes, he's insane, but look what he can do

• Cathy: Then he smiles and where else can I go?
  I didn't know, the rules do not apply
  And then he smiles and nothing else makes sense
  While he invents the world that's passing by

• Cathy: I'm a part of that... aren't I?

The Schmuel Song

• Jamie: "If I only had time," old Schmuel said
  "I would build the dress that's in my head
  A dress to fire the mad desire
  Of girls from here to Minsk"

• Jamie: "I should take out my teeth and go to bed
  I'm sitting here with talking clocks instead"

• Jamie: And sewn into the seams
  Were forty-one seasons of dreams
  Dreams that you could feel coming real
  And that very dress, so the papers swore
  Was the dress a girl in Odessa wore
  On the day she promised forevermore
  To love a young man named Schmuel
  Who only one day before
  Had knocked at her kitchen door.

• Jamie: Plenty have hoped and dreamed and prayed, but they can't get out of Klimovich
  If Schmeul had been a cute goyishe maid he'd have looked a lot like you
  Maybe it's just that you're afraid to go out on to a limb-ovich
  Maybe your heart's completely swayed but your head can't follow through

• Jamie: Don't you think that now's a good time to be
  The ambitious freak you are?

• Jamie: Take a breath, take a step
  Take a chance
  Take your time
  Have I mentioned today how lucky I am
  To be in love with you?

A Summer in Ohio

• Cathy: But it wouldn't be as nice as a summer in Ohio
  Where I'm sharing a room with a "former" stripper
  And her snake -- Wayne

• Cathy: I could shove an ice pick in my eye
  I could eat some fish from last July
  But it wouldn't be as awful as a summer in Ohio
  Without cable, hot water, Vietnamese food, or you

• Cathy: He wants me, he wants me
  But he ain't gonna get me

• Cathy: Son of a bitch, I guess I'm doing something right

• Cathy: Then I get on my knees and pray I can state in my next bio
  I'm never gonna go back to Ohio!

• Cathy: I could chew on tinfoil for a spell
  I can get a root canal in hell
  But it wouldn't be as swell as this summer is gonna be

• Cathy: Love, the midget, the stripper, Wayne the snake
  And Mrs. Jamie Wellerstein
  That's me!

The Next Ten Minutes

• Jamie: Will you share your life with me
  For the next ten minutes?
  For the next ten minutes?
  We can handle that

• Jamie: And if we make it till then
  Can I ask you again for another ten?
  And if you in turn agree to the next ten minutes
  And the next ten minutes 'til the morning comes
  Then just holding you might compel me to ask you for more

• Cathy: I am not always on time
  Please don't expect that from me
  I will be late
  But if you can just wait
  I will make it eventually

• Cathy: I could protect and preserve
  I could say "no" and "goodbye"
  But why, Jamie, why?
  I want to be your wife
  I want to bear your child
  I want to die knowing I had a long, full life in your arms
  That I can do
  Forever with you

• Jamie: Will you share your life with me
  For the next ten lifetimes?
  For a million summers
  Jamie and Cathy: 'Til the world explodes
  'Til there's no one left who has ever known us apart?

A Miracle Would Happen/When You Come Home to Me

• Jamie: Everyone tells you that the minute you get married
  Every other woman in the world suddenly finds you attractive
  Well, that's not true
  It only affects the kind of women you always wanted to sleep with
  But they wouldn't give you the time of day before

• Jamie: Except you're sitting there eating your corn beef sandwich
  And all of a sudden this pair of breasts walks by
  And smiles at you and you're like
  "That's not fair"

• Jamie: And I'm showing her my left hand
  I'm gesticulating with my left hand
  And then WHOMP! There's Cathy!
  Cause she knows, they always know
  And there's that really awkward moment
  Where I try to show I wasn't encouraging this
  Though of course I sorta was
  And I don't want to look whipped in front of this woman
  Which is dumb I shouldn't care what she thinks
  Since I can't fuck her anyway!

• Jamie: And in a perfect world
  A miracle would happen
  And every girl would look like Mister Ed

• Jamie: And I will be there, ripe and crawling
  If fucking Random House stops calling

Climbing Uphill

• Cathy: I'm up every morning at six
  And standing in line with 200 girls who are younger and thinner than me
  Who have already been to the gym

• Cathy: Why is the director staring at his crotch?
  Why is that man staring at my resume?
  Don't stare at my resume
  I made up half my resume
  Look at me, stop looking at that, look at me
  No, not at my shoes, don't look at my shoes
  I hate these fucking shoes
  Why'd I pick these shoes?
  Why'd I pick this song?
  Why'd I pick this career?
  Why does this pianist hate me?

• Cathy: Jamie needs his space to write
  Since I'm obviously such a horrible, annoying distraction to him
  What's he gonna be like when we have kids?

• Cathy: Why am I working so hard?
  These are the people who cast Linda Blair in a musical
  Jesus Christ, I suck, I suck, I suck, I suck!

• Cathy: I will not be the girl who requires a man to get by

If I Didn't Believe In You

• Jamie: [speaking] Can we have two minutes where you don't contradict everything I say? Can we... Cathy! Please? Two minutes? Then it's your turn. You can say whatever you want.

• Jamie: "Is it really about a party, Cathy?
  Can we please for a minute stop blaming and say what you feel?"
  

• Jamie: "Did you think this would all be much easier than it's turned out to be?
  Well then talk to me Cathy, talk to me"

• Jamie: If I didn't believe in you
  We wouldn't be having this fight
  If I didn't believe in you
  I'd walk out the door and say
  "Cathy, you're right"

• Jamie: "it never took much convincing to make me believe in you"

• Jamie: Don't we get to be happy, Cathy?
  At some point down the line, don't we get to relax?

• Jamie: If I'm cheering on your side, Cathy
  Why can't you support mine?

• Jamie: No one can give you courage
  No one can thicken your skin
  I will not fail so you can be comfortable, Cathy
  I will not lose because you can't win

• Jamie: If I didn't believe in you
  Then here's where the travelogue ends

• Jamie: This is the life I choose
  This is the thing I can't bear to lose
  Trip us or trap us but we refuse to fall."
  That's what I thought we agreed on, Cathy
  If I didn't believe in you
  I wouldn't have loved you at all

I Can Do Better Than That

• Cathy: [speaking] All right, so we'll be there soon. Are you hungry? Sick of me yet?

• Cathy: And I guess he was cute
  And I guess he was sweet
  And I guess he was good in bed

• Cathy: You don't have to get a haircut
  You don't have to change your shoes
  You don't have to like Duran Duran
  Just love me

Nobody Needs to Know

• Jamie: Hey kid, good morning, you look like an angel
  I don't remember when we fell asleep
  We should get up, kid, Cathy is waiting

• Jamie: I wrote a story, and we changed the ending

• Jamie: Put on my armour, I'm off to Ohio
  Back into battle till I don't know when
  Swearing to her that I never was with you
  And praying I'll hold you again

• Jamie: Hold on, clip these wings
  Things get out of hand

• Jamie: We build a tree house, I keep it from shaking
  Little more glue every time that it breaks
  Perfectly balanced, and then I start making
  Conscious, delibrate mistakes

• Jamie: I grip, and she grips, and faster we're sliding
  Sliding and spilling, and what can I do
  Come back to bed, kid, take me inside you
  I promise I won't lie to you

• Jamie: Alright, the panic recedes,
  Alright, everyone bleeds
  Alright, I get what I need
  And nobody needs to know

• Jamie: And since I have to be in love with someone
  Since I need to be in love with someone
  Maybe I could be in love with someone like you

Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You

• Cathy: Don't kiss me goodbye again
  Leave this night clean and quiet
  You want the last word, you want me to laugh
  But leave it for now.

• Cathy: Goodbye until tomorrow
  Goodbye until I recall how to breathe
  And I have been waiting
  I have been waiting for you

• Cathy: I open myself
  I open myself one stitch at a time
  Finally yes, finally now
  Finally someone takes me away
  Finally free, finally he
  Can cut through these strings and open my wings!

• Cathy: Goodbye until tomorrow
  Goodbye until my feet touch the floor
  And I will be waiting
  I will be waiting!
  Goodbye until tomorrow
  Goodbye until the rest of my life

• Jamie: It's not about another shrink
  It's not about another compromise

• Jamie: You never saw how far the crack had opened
  You never knew I had run out of rope
  And I could never rescue you
  All you ever wanted
  But I could never rescue you
  No matter how I try
  All I could do was love you hard and let you go.

• Jamie: All I could do was love you
  God, I loved you so

• Cathy: Goodbye until tomorrow
  Goodbye until I crawl to your door

• Jamie: You never noticed how the wind had changed
  Cathy: Goodbye until tomorrow!
  Jamie: I didn't see a way we both could win
  Cathy: Goodbye until I'm done thanking God

• Cathy: Just close the gate
  I'll stand and wait
  Jamie
  Cathy and Jamie: Goodbye