Rouge & Scarlett: An Electrifying Anthem, a true love story

This is a true love story about Rouge & Scarlett. They never knew each other. Kat loved them both.

When I sing Charged UP, you shout as bravely as you feel, "Charged UP!"

Key of G · stomp-clap roots gospel ·

Verse 1 (road-trip bravado, big and swaggering)

Fifteen thousand miles, not once, not twice

Four times coast to coast, north, south, east, west

September, October, November, three months flat

You do the math on that

The Great March for Climate took eight months to walk from LA to DC

Kat did four times that distance

In a third of the time

In a red Tesla she named Rouge

On electricity.

(sung)

No fumes, no tanks, just to make amends

Just a TESLA digital charging Maurauder's map

She wasn't marching, she was in her driver mode

Showing everybody everywhere she'd go:

"It works. It's fun. Get in."

Chorus

(stomp stomp clap — stomp stomp clap)

🎵 Fifteen thousand miles on an electric dream

Kat and Rouge, a dedicated team

Fun and ease and joy on a fossil-free road

Plugged in, audience yells ("Charged UP!") carrying a beautiful tune 🎵

Verse 2 (the joy, pull-over-and-talk energy)

She'd pull up to a charger in the afternoon light

Strangers wandering over, left and right,

"How far does it go? How long does it take?"

She'd say, "Long enough, grab your drink, let's wait"

State by state, she modeled the life

Not from a podium, from behind the wheel

She was the proof, she was the story, she was the deal

And Rouge? Rouge ate it up

Every mountain pass, every desert mile

Doing fifteen thousand miles in style

Verse 3 — The Deer (funny, road-warrior proud)

1:15 am pitch black night, an hour before Atlanta, her 4 day copilot, an hour in,

A soon to be a jump-and-(we hoped)run deer introduced itself into the story

Didn't ask permission, didn't check the mirror or deer in the headlight

Just launched itself at Rouge, couldn't be clearer

Took out the mirror bracket, limp and dangling from the door,

Cracked the driver's side headlight

Rouge said, "That all you got? I've seen worse before"

So Kat reached into her bag of tricks

Pulled out the guerrilla tape, (yeah, the clear stuff), gave it six

Good wraps around that broken bracket right, then

Sealed the cracks from the close encounter with that headlight

Said, "Hope it holds."

And it held for nine thousand miles more.

(sung, triumphant)

Nine. Thousand. Miles.

With a taped-up mirror and headlight and a dedicated driver

Because that's what you do on a fossil-free road,

You adapt, and you sing your beautiful ballad.

Chorus (full band)

Verse 4 — The Crash (spoken slowly, let it land)

Northwest Arizona.

Sunny Sunday.

Noon.

The drunk driver came up over the hill

Ran the red light

And thumped Rouge on the other side, right rear

As Kat was turning left onto the final highway

Seven hours from California.

Seven hours from the finish line

of her fourth crossing.

Rouge took it.

Right rear.

Absorbed the whole thing.

Kat walked away.

(pause)

No adjuster showed up.

Jim showed up.

A friend.

To drive with her in the sun til dark

in Holbrooke, Arizona

and let the shock and the sadness

have somewhere to go.

(sung, low and certain)

Rouge didn't crumple to save the mission

Rouge crumpled to save Kat.

That was always the first job.

Fifteen thousand miles and she never forgot that.

Bridge (full voice, key starting to lift)

Four full crossings. Three months. One woman. One car.

Four times the distance of the Great March, how far

Is far enough to prove that the dream is real?

Ask Rouge. She'll tell you. She knows the deal.

Holbrooke, Arizona. Sunny Sunday. Noon.

Seven hours from the finish.

Rouge didn't make it.

The mission did.

11 EV's bought.

Verse 5 — Enter Scarlett (comic relief — deeply needed)

The insurance check came and Kat went to look

Found an identical red Tesla 3, same year, same look

Thirty thousand fewer miles, half the price of Rouge

From a West Point grad who knew how to choose

Kat pioneered women at the Air Force Academy

So when she looked this man in the eye

There was a language there that didn't need translating:

We know what it costs to go first.

We know what it means to hold the line.

Take good care of her.

(sung, grinning)

Kat looked Scarlett over, once, twice, three times around

Said, "You've got big tires to fill on some seriously shifting ground"

Scarlett blinked her headlights, casual, cool

Said, "Girl, I run on lightning.

I did not come to lose.

Also

I have all my mirrors."

(beat)

"Just. Saying."

Final Chorus / Anthem (call and response, gospel stomp)

Plugged IN! ("Charged UP!")

Fifteen thousand down (more to come!)

Fossil free (finally!)

Breathing clean (tasting free!)

🎵 The road is long and the road is bright

Electric mornings and charging UP nights

Kat keeps driving and Scarlett gleams

Rouge lives on in fifteen thousand dreams

We're not waiting for the world to change

We're charging up and modeling the range

Plugged IN, "Charged UP", healthier, bold

Electrified and finer, that's the future we hold

Fun and ease and joy and fossil-free

Plugged in, ("Charged UP!"), carrying a beautiful tune🎵

Final tag (whispered, after the last chord fades, cinematic spoken word finish)

"Holbrooke, Arizona. Sunny Sunday. Noon.

Seven hours from the finish.

Rouge didn't make it.

The mission did.

Fifteen thousand miles of proof.

Every EV on the road is moving truth.