Huddled Masses

Music and Lyrics by Shaina Taub 

Shaina Taub wrote “Huddled Masses,” in early 2017. It was inspired by the poem written by Emma Lazarus that is featured at the base of the Statue of Liberty, in New York Harbor as well as two columns by NEW York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof, “The Statue of Liberty Must Be Crying With Shame” and Anne Frank Today is a Syrian Girl”. The song is featured on Ms. Taub’s album, “Die Happy,”  

Shaina Taub is a powerhouse voice in American musical theater: a two-time Tony Award-winning and Grammy-nominated songwriter, performer, and creator whose work is reshaping Broadway and beyond. She won Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Score for Suffs, in which she also starred as suffragist Alice Paul, earning a Grammy nomination and sweeping accolades from the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk. 

The New Colossus 

by Emma Lazarus        

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”