Carrying the Banner

Carrying The Banner is the second number of the show. It follows directly after Santa Fe (Prologue). This includes a large dances number.

Plot
The song starts in the Newsboys Lodge, as the boys get ready for their day. The song songs takes them through Downtown Manhattan, including a street corner where you meet Katherine for the first time. Along the way, the sing about their hard lifes as newsies. The also meet nuns about halfway through the number, who distribute breakfast to the newsies. The newsies sing and dance all the way to newsies square, where a scene takes place.

Lyrics
Sung lyrics are in normal text. Spoken lines are italicized. Dialogue breaks are marked like [this]. For the abbreviation list, go here. Differences in the Broadway script are marked in the footnote.

R: Hey! That's my cigar!

A: You'll steal another!

S: ​Hey look, it's bath time at the zoo!

RM: I thought I'd surprise me mother.

A: If you can find her!

N: Who asked you?

[dialogue]

R: From Alley to the harbor, there's easy pickens guaranteed.

F: Try any banker, bum, or barber. They almost all knows how to read!

J: It's a crooked game we're playin', one we'll never lose.

Long as suckers don't mind payin', just to get bad news!

N: Still it's a fine life, carrying the banner through it all. A mighty fine life, carrying the banner tough and tall.

When that bell rings, we goes where we wishes.

We's as free as fishes.

Sure beats washin' dishes.

What a fine life carrying the banner home free all!

[dialogue]

F: Hey Crutchie, what your leg say? Gonna rain?

C: No rain, partly cloudy, clear by evening!

F: They outta bottle this guy.

R: And the limp sells 50 papes a week all buy itself.

C: I don't need the limp. I got personality.

It takes a smile that spreads like butter, the kind that turns a lady's head.

R: It takes a orphan with a stutter.

F: Who's also blind.

A: And mute.

E: And dead!

J, C*: Summer stinks and winter's freezing, when you works outdoors.

J, C, B, T, SP*: Start out sweating, end up sneezing...

N: ...In between it pours!

Still, it's a fine life, carrying the banner with me chums.

(Still, it's a fine life, carrying the banner with me chums.)

A bunch o' big shots, tossing out a freebie to the bums.

(A bunch o' big shots, tossing out a freebie...)

F: Hey! What's the holdup?

Waiting makes me antsy, I likes living chaney.

N: Harlem to Delancey.

What a fine life, carrying the banner through the ...

NS: Blessed children, though you wander lost and depraved.

Jesus loves you, you shall be saved.

R: Curled...

NS: Blessed... (E: Just give me had a cup)

R: ...Coffee.

NS: ...Children. (H: Something to wake me up)

R: Concrete doughnuts (RM: I gotta find an angle)

R: ...sprinkled with mold. (T: It's getting bad out there)

R: Homemade... (M: Papers is all I got)

NS: Jesus... (S: It's 88 degrees)

R: ...Biscuits. (JJ: Jack says to change my spot)

NS: ...Loves you. (A**:Wish I could catch a breeze)

R: Just two... (F: Maybe it's worth a shot)

R: ...Years old. (B: All I can catch is fleas)

J: I hate the headline, I'll make up a headline.

J, C: And I'll say anything I have to.

J, C, R, RM: 'Cause at two for a penny, if I take to many, weasel just make me eat 'em afta'.

N: Got a feeling 'bout the headline (I do too).

I smells me a headline (So it must be true).

Papes are gonna sell like we was giving 'em away (What a switch).

'Betcha dinner, it's a doozy (Soon we'll all be rich)

'Bout a pistol packing floozy (Don't know a...)

Who knows how to make a newsies day? (...better way to make a newsies day)

You wanna move the next edition?

Give us an earthquake or a war!

E: How 'bout a crooked politician?

N: Ya nitwit, that ain't news no more!

Uptown to Grand Central Station, down to City Hall.

We improves our circulation walking 'til we fall!

But we'll be out there (Got a feeling 'bout the headline).

Carrying the banner man to man (I smells me a headline).

Papes are gonna sell like we was giving 'am away.

We're always out there ('Betcha dinner, it's a doozy).

Soakin' every sucker that we can ('Bout a pistol packing floozy).

Don't know any better way to make a newsies day!

Here's the headline (I was stakin' out the circus).

Newsies on a mission (and then someone said that Coney's really hot).

Kill the competition (but when I got there).

Sell the next edition (There was Spot with all his cronies).

We'll all be out there (Heck, I'm gonna take what little dough I)

Carrying the banner (got and play the ponies)

See us out there (We at least deserves a headline for)

Carrying the banner (the hours that they work us)

Always out there (Jeez, I bet if I had stayed a little)

Carrying the banner.... (at the circus....)

[dialogue]

N: We'll all be our there, carrying the banner man to man.

We'll all be out there, soaking every sucker that we can.

Here's a headline: newsies on a mission.

Kill the competition!

Sell the next edition!

We'll be out there, carrying the banner!

See its out there, carrying the banner!

Always out there, carrying the banner!

Ah, ah, ah, go!

Broadway Differences
*These lines are sung by all newsies.

**This line is sung by Sniper, rather than Albert.