Musical Cast Recording - Ragtime lyrics

In 1902, father built a house at the crest Of the Broadview Avenue hill in New Rochelle, New York And it seemed for some years thereafter That all the family's days would be warm and fair The skies were blue and hazy Rarely a storm, barely a chill The afternoons were lazy Everyone warm, everything still And there was distant music Simple and somehow sublime Giving a nation, a new syncopation The people called it ragtime And there was distant music Skipping a beat, singing a dream A strange, insistent music Putting out heat, picking up steam A sound of distant thunder Suddenly starting to climb It was the music of something beginning An era exploding, a century spinning In riches and rags And in rhythm and rhyme The people called it ragtime Ragtime, ragtime, ragtime