What’s Left? Lyrics
What’s Left?
Aimless projectsEndless stuff
The house on the hill
Filled with objects
Never felt full enough
We never leapt a hurdle
We would just turn and run
Now what is left
After the living's done
Heavy-hearted
Weighed down with worry and doubt
I waited around to get started
Then all of my time ran out
But suddenly
Life's all around us
Warm as a winter's sun
So what is left
After the living's done
There's always a door
To different, or better, or more
We have the chalk
We could draw one and walk
Like all of the doorways
We walked through before
There's always an out
Never changing ourselves
Only changing the house
But now I want in
Give me chaos, but let me begin
Give me people and problems and obstacles
Not a house, but a home
Hell isn't other people
It's being alone
No more grieving
(No more grieving)
And watching the world pass us by
We need something to believe in
How about you and I
Lydia's lost and she needs us
Somehow she sees us
Maybe the reason's because
Something's left
After the living's done
It's us
And us is enough
After the living's done
Song Overview
A late addition to the Maitlands arc in development, this 2019 ballad sketches Barbara and Adam choosing connection over isolation. It lived through rehearsals, then the team swapped it for a brighter call-to-action before opening. The studio demo landed on the 2020 archival set of sketches and cut cues.
Review and Highlights
Quick summary
- Development ballad for Barbara and Adam that sat after The Children We Didn’t Have and just before the late-stage replacement by Barbara 2.0.
- Released on the digital compilation Beetlejuice: The Demos The Demos The Demos - a 24 track archive performed by Eddie Perfect.
- Not a single, no charts - a document of the show finding tone and pace.
- Function - to steer the Maitlands from avoidance toward action alongside Lydia.
- Plainly put by the composer in interviews: the piece read true but weighed the act down, leading to the swap.
Creation History
The song emerged in 2019 as the team reworked Act II handoffs. It made it all the way to tech before being replaced - a classic case of truth versus timing. The album release in October 2020 preserves the draft so you can hear the fork in the road. According to Playbill’s feature on the score, the fix was to trade earnest balladry for a propulsive decision song that would lift the act instead of tilting it toward grief. BroadwayWorld’s release note frames the demos set as a guided tour of those choices.
Song Meaning and Annotations
Plot
Barbara and Adam take stock. The house is full of stuff and empty of life. They name the pattern - avoiding hurdles, changing rooms instead of selves - then choose differently. The lyric steers them toward Lydia, toward making a home out of the living people still in the story.
Song Meaning
It is a reckoning that refuses the mausoleum vibe. The couple admit the comfort of collecting and the cost of stalling, then reach for messy life. Genre-wise, it is theatre pop in slow bloom: a quiet verse, a warmer middle, a pledge to rejoin the world. The move matters because it reframes the Maitlands as allies with agency rather than ghosts stuck in a craft room.
Annotations
“There’s always a door”
The chalk-door image threads the franchise - here it becomes a metaphor for changing selves, not just spaces. The subtext: stop rearranging furniture, step into risk.
“Hell isn’t other people - it’s being alone”
A neat inversion of the line you expect. It tilts the show’s moral center toward community and away from retreat.
“Lydia’s lost and she needs us”
The hinge. The Maitlands turn outward, which clears space for the later uptempo answer song that replaced this moment in the book.
Style, rhythm, and feel
Softly rising piano ballad with paired voices and a restrained build. The melody favors long lines and stress on conversational syllables - closer to confession than aria. The emotional arc runs from inventory of regret to a promise to act, which is why the sequence later inherits a more buoyant musical setting.
Cultural touchpoint
Beetlejuice has always used doors - literal and drawn - as transit. This lyric turns the device inward, making the threshold a choice rather than a portal. According to Playbill’s composer notes, that choice stayed; only the vessel changed.
Key Facts
- Artist: Eddie Perfect
- Featured: Barbara and Adam (narrative duet - demo performed by Eddie Perfect)
- Composer: Eddie Perfect
- Producer: Eddie Perfect
- Release Date: October 30, 2020
- Genre: Theatre pop ballad
- Instruments: Piano-led rhythm section, blended voices
- Label: Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records
- Mood: reflective, hopeful, steady
- Length: about 3:20
- Track #: 16 on the demos set
- Language: English
- Album: Beetlejuice: The Demos The Demos The Demos
- Music style: duet ballad with incremental build
- Poetic meter: mixed, speech-driven scansion
Canonical Entities & Relations
- Eddie Perfect - wrote, produced, and performs the demo.
- Kris Kukul - music supervisor and collaborator cited as helping unlock the later Barbara 2.0 solution.
- Ghostlight Records - issued the digital demos album.
- Sh-K-Boom Records - label imprint on the release.
- Barbara 2.0 - replacement number that carries the same character turn with a brighter engine.
- The Children We Didn’t Have - earlier ballad in the same story slot.
Questions and Answers
- Where did this song sit in the show?
- After The Children We Didn’t Have and before the action pivots toward the finale - it was the Maitlands’ recommitment scene.
- Why was it cut?
- The writing felt true but slowed the act. The team swapped in Barbara 2.0 to keep the energy up while making the same choice.
- Is the recording official?
- Yes - it appears on the 2020 demos compilation, performed by the composer.
- Any single release, charts, or certifications?
- No - it is archival material rather than a commercial single.
- Does this lyric resurface later?
- Not verbatim. The idea - choose life and help Lydia - gets carried into the replacement number.
- What makes the lyric tick?
- Concrete images - clutter, chalk, doors - and a clean turn from inventory to action. It’s small truths stacked until they tip.
- How does it color Barbara and Adam compared to the movie?
- It leans their arc toward mentorship and family, setting up the parent energy the finale needs.
- What should I listen for in the demo?
- The moment when the harmony widens on the word “us” - the song’s thesis in miniature.
Awards and Chart Positions
No chart activity for this track. For context, the Broadway production earned eight Tony Award nominations in 2019, including Best Musical and Best Original Score, and picked up season hardware for design.
| Year | Award Body | 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
As stated in Playbill’s deep dive, the composer tried a pair of earnest Maitlands ballads in this slot before landing on Barbara 2.0 in tech. BroadwayWorld’s announcement of the demos album underlines that the set includes commentary that tells that story track by track. The label pages confirm the digital release on October 30, 2020. According to the album listings, the cut clocks just over three minutes, nestled between the earlier draft and the final solution.
Sources: Playbill; BroadwayWorld; Ghostlight Records; Apple Music; Amazon Music; Tony Awards; Outer Critics Circle.