The file contains multiple drafts of songs, which vary in their completeness: some drafts extend to several verses and others are only a few lines in length. Many of the drafts have been handwritten by Burgess - or contain his handwritten amendments - and some lyrics have also been annotated by an unknown person. (Some of the lyrics relate to songs that did not ultimately appear in the musical.)
The file contains draft lyrics for the following:
1) Untitled song (in French), first line "Gascogne, Gascogne"
2) Untitled song, first line "Remember when the two of us"
3) Untitled song, first line "Now - a prosaic coda:"
4) Untitled song, first line "How you cursed the / Time you first essayed"
5) Untitled song, first line "Does it matter?"
6) Untitled song, first line "Golden Venus, / Chaste Diana"
7) Untitled song, first line "The year is sixteen twenty / King Louis the thirteenth adorns the throne with royal grace"
8) Untitled song, first line "Let sickly sycophants croak"
9) Paris Cuisine
10) Untitled song, first line "Fourteen years, fourteen years, / I'm content to"
11) I Never Loved You
12) Words Getting in the Way
13) What Does 'I Love You' Mean?
14) Anything
15) Nose Song [Cyrano's Nose]
16) Panache
17) Autumn Carol
18) Untitled song, first line "Who are these men of brawny chest"
19) Give the World a Kiss
20) Tell Her
21) Untitled song, first line "Hungry? That's not hunger. You're being / rarefied"
22) Untitled song, first line "The Lord is my shepherd / So nothing need I."
23) Untitled song, first line "A moment comes / No trumpets greet." (An incomplete draft score for the song in an unknown hand is written on the reverse of the lyrics.)
Items 1-9 (above) were drafted on letter-headed paper from the Department of English, The City College of The City University of New York, which suggests that they are post-1972 in date.
Also contained within the file is a typescript list of "Lyrics written by Anthony Burgess for 'Cyrano'" and a photocopied letter from Burgess, dated 28 March 1973, in which he outlines his feelings about the production - in particular, regarding his continued involvement with it.
See also AB/ARCH/A/CYR/3 for an anonymous note regarding suggested alterations to Christian's Song and Autumn Carol.