Gotta Get Outta This House Lyrics
Gotta Get Outta This House
[BETELGEUSE]Let's start at the start, this is my prison
That's where you poop and this is the kitchen
[SPOKEN]
They're really close
[SUNG]
Before pediatricians
Or even religion invented a soul you could save
I've been haunting this house
Since it was a cave
Ugh
Look at these morons, totally clueless
[ENSEMBLE]
Owo-oh-oh-oh, Owu-oh-uwu-oh-oh
[BETELGEUSE]
Eat, sleep and screw is their entire to-do list
[ENSEMBLE]
Owo-oh-oh-oh, Owu-oh-uwu-oh-oh
[BETELGEUSE]
Stuck with these schmucks with nothing to do
Just watching these jack-offs scrape by
It's the same old story
Guess what? You've been boring
Way back since the dawning of tim?
You don't know how to live
You are sucking at life
Ev?r heard about fun?
You've just barely survived
All you do is complain
"It's too hot, it's too cold"
You get killed by some rain
Before you're twenty years old
You invented the wheel
And that's pretty much it
Yeah, but what's the big deal?
Wheels are boring as shit
Try inventing a gun, and stick it right in my mouth
Ugh! I gotta get outta this house
[SPOKEN]
Much later I'd live with a tribe of Chippewa Indians
Yeah, I'm not gonna go there
[SUNG]
Let's move things forward!
A few thousand years
Hey
[ENSEMBLE]
Owo-oh-oh-oh, Owu-oh-oh-oh
[BETELGEUSE]
The house has been built, it's a sweet pioneer place
[ENSEMBLE]
Owo-oh-oh-oh, Owu-oh-oh-oh
[SPOKEN]
Oh-wah! Was I cute?
[SUNG]
We're pre-vaccination
So that's entertainin'
One cough and you're off to the grave
People whittle a stick or they shit in a pit
So nothing much has changed since the cave
You still don't know how to live
You're still wasting your lives
Have a couple of kids
Read a book, and then die
Kill someone with a rock
Dig around in the earth
Maybe darn a few socks
Maybe die giving birth
Beat a raccoon to death
Catch a fish and you're done
Twenty-five years to live, spinin' 'round the old sun
You are dumber than birds, at least they know to fly south
God! I gotta get outta this house
Year-on-year-on-year-on-year
They live, they die
And I'm right here
I scare them fine
But otherwise, I'm invisible
[ENSEMBLE]
He's invisible
[BETELGEUSE SPOKEN]
Shut up!
[SUNG]
I stay unseen by living eyes
Unless they say my name three times
And it's not like I'm cynical
BUT IT'S NEVER GONNA HAPPEN!
Centuries come, and centuries pass
And I'm just sat here, on my ass
But what would I do
What would I give
Not just to be seen
But to go out and live
Really live
Step to the present, and what have you got, huh?
[ENSEMBLE]
Owo-oh-oh-oh, Owu-oh-oh-oh
[BETELGEUSE]
The internet
And "I can't believe it's not butter"
[ENSEMBLE]
Owo-oh-oh-oh, Owu-oh-oh-oh
[BETELGEUSE SPOKEN]
That's it
[SUNG]
This boring new couple
Pulled up in their 'mobile
This truck, just my luck
But they suck like the rest
Before they move in, and this whole thing begins
There's a couple of things I wanna get off my chest
You don't know what you've got
Nothing's ever enough
You're on FaceBook a lot
Like "here's my feelings and stuff"
You've never been more alone
And you won't ever stop
Maybe get off your phone now and then and lookup
If I ever got free I would play in the sun
Maybe climb up a tree, and then kill ev'ryone
These four walls have destroyed my brain
Will somebody please say my goddamn name?!
Well that's the dream to be seen
But if I wanna live I've gotta figure out how to get me a spouse
I gotta- God I wanna
If I don't then I'm a goner
Yes I gotta-gotta-gotta-gotta
Gotta get out of this house!
Gotta get out of this house!
I gotta get out of this house
Song Overview
Review and Highlights
Quick summary
- 2016 cut number from the show’s development - a would-be opener where Beetlejuice tours human history from inside one cursed address.
- Lives officially on the compilation Beetlejuice: The Demos The Demos The Demos rather than the Broadway cast album.
- Musically: patter-forward Broadway rock with gang shouts and elastic rhyme - equal parts snark and sales pitch.
- Dramaturgy: explains his invisibility rule and telegraphs the later marriage scheme as a path to being seen.
- No single release or charts - it is archival worldbuilding that fans adopted fast.
Creation History
Eddie Perfect wrote this after earlier opening ideas were tossed. In his account, the song sketched Beetlejuice stuck in the same house since Neanderthal days - funny on paper, tricky in staging once you start imagining cavemen and pioneers parading by. The team pivoted again, and the show eventually found its Broadway-opening voice elsewhere. The demo landed on the 2020 Ghostlight release that collected these roads not taken, with track-by-track commentary available for extra context.
Song Meaning and Annotations
Plot
There is no scene change yet - just a demon blowing off steam. Beetlejuice walks us from prehistory to present day, roasting mortals for being boring, fragile, and phone-addled. He’s invisible unless someone says his name three times. He wants out. The rant turns into a plan: find a spouse, get free, go live.
Song Meaning
Think of it as a thesis monologue set to a stomp. The track sets motive - visibility and agency - while framing Beetlejuice as both commentator and chaos merchant. Genre fusion matters here: the patter barrels like stand-up, the band hits punch lines on the downbeat, the ensemble chants add culty swagger. The joke lands because the groove never flinches.
Annotations
“Let’s start at the start, this is my prison”
Fans hear a melodic echo of “Barbara 2.0” in the opening shape - a useful breadcrumb if you are tracing leitmotifs across the score. It hints at how materials migrated during rewrites.
“Much later I’d live with a tribe of Chippewa Indians”
He tosses off American history like a bit. Given the film’s canonical Connecticut setting, the aside reads less as a geo-fact and more as a character tell - Beetlejuice embellishes whichever story flatters his rant.
“Unless they say my name three times”
The rule-of-three gag is the franchise’s spine. In the official video art for the demos cycle, visual gags extend it with a to-do list once he is mortal - the joke being that freedom would immediately be squandered on petty mischief.
“Maybe get off your phone ... then kill everyone”
Signature whiplash: he pivots from dime-store wisdom to violent punch line in one breath. That volatile swing is the character’s comic engine.
“If I wanna live I’ve gotta figure out how to get me a spouse”
Early-draft Beetlejuice treats the marriage angle like a plan, not a last resort. Later versions dial up the panic so the move feels desperate rather than premeditated. Same destination, different shade.
Genre and feel
Broadway rock with vaudeville snap. Riffs tumble, the chorus chants, and a faux-inspirational bridge lets him imagine sunlight before the mask slips again. According to Playbill’s behind-the-scenes feature, these demos chart how the show kept the carnival energy while sharpening the opening’s job.
Emotional arc
Start - prison tour. Middle - centuries of mockery, rule drop, the ache to be seen. End - a plan blurted like a dare. The band buttons hard to promise motion the plot will later deliver.
Touchpoints
Developmental openings that did not make Broadway, the “say my name” mechanic, and the later pivot to an opener that speaks directly to the audience about death. As TheaterMania noted when the demos dropped, the set documents how tone and function evolved across drafts.
Key Facts
- Artist: Eddie Perfect
- Featured: Ensemble stacks in the demo context
- Composer: Eddie Perfect
- Producer: Release by Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records
- Release Date: October 30, 2020
- Genre: Broadway rock, patter
- Instruments: Rhythm section, guitars, keys, ensemble vocals
- Label: Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records
- Mood: manic, sardonic, aspirational-in-spite-of-itself
- Length: about 5:06
- Track #: 4 on Beetlejuice: The Demos The Demos The Demos
- Language: English
- Album: Beetlejuice: The Demos The Demos The Demos
- Music style: patter verses over rock backbeat with chant refrains
- Poetic meter: mixed; trochaic bursts in patter lines
Canonical Entities & Relations
- Eddie Perfect - wrote and performs this demo cut.
- Ghostlight Records - issued the demos compilation in 2020.
- Sh-K-Boom Records - label imprint for the release.
- Beetlejuice - character whose rules and needs the track lays out.
- Alex Timbers - director of the Broadway production where different opening strategies were tested.
Questions and Answers
- Was this ever the final Broadway opener?
- No. It was a development draft that ran into staging and story-focus questions, then got cut in favor of a different way in.
- What job does the song try to do?
- Give Beetlejuice a stand-and-deliver thesis: why being unseen is torture and why he will break rules to change that.
- Where can I hear it?
- On the 2020 demos compilation via major streamers, plus an official upload tied to the label.
- How does it relate to later numbers?
- It seeds the visibility rule, the say-my-name mechanic, and the marriage gambit that later drives Act II trouble.
- Any official single or chart action?
- No single campaign and no charts - it is archival material.
- Why did the team move on from this approach?
- The history-parade conceit and house-bound timeline raised staging headaches. The eventual opener spoke straight to the audience about death and set tone faster.
- Is there a companion commentary?
- Yes. The demos drop came with commentary videos and notes that unpack why each cut existed and why it was cut.
Awards and Chart Positions
The track itself has no chart footprint. The Broadway production built from this material earned eight Tony Award nominations in 2019, including Best Musical and Best Original Score. The design team also scored wins on the season’s circuit, including an Outer Critics Circle award for scenic design. According to Playbill’s season coverage and the Tony Awards site, those nods helped the show’s profile surge.
| Year | Award | Category | Result |
| 2019 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Nominated |
| 2019 | Tony Awards | Best Original Score - Eddie Perfect | Nominated |
| 2019 | Outer Critics Circle | Outstanding Scenic Design - David Korins | Won |
Additional Info
On the compilation, the cut sits after two other would-be openers. Hearing them in sequence explains the show’s problem-solving: start broad and jokey, then tighten toward an opening that invites the audience to laugh at death and buckle in. As stated in Playbill’s composer interview, the direct-address strategy became the cleaner handshake with the crowd.
Sources: Playbill; Tony Awards; Apple Music; Spotify; BroadwayWorld; TheaterMania; YouTube; Discogs; Musical Theatre Review.