The Scott Joplin rag, “The Entertainer,” has lyrics, and I can’t remember or find them. I have no idea if they were part of the original composition, or were added after the fact, but I sang this song in a boys choir about thirty years ago, and Rowlf sang it (with the same words) on an episode of The Muppet Show.
Anybody know them?
I could not find any lyrics online and I doubt they were part of the original composition. Most likely added later. In any case you might email Perfessor Bill.
When I was a kid we sang the following, but it’s just doggerel (pretty stupid doggerel, too), and I don’t know where we got it from:
La la la la la la la la
Hey Mr. Joplin, we’re singing your song.
La la la la la la la la
And we’re happy to say it’s going strong.
La la la la la la la la
The Entertainer’s so old it sounds new…
And I’m afraid I forget the rest.
Well, you might want to try downloading “Ragtime Jukebox” (it’s a free program) from http://www.beechbrook.com/pte/. There are 50, IIRC, Joplin songs on that. It’s a pretty cool program (actually slideshow).
I saw the lyrics once in a book of sheet music, and also got the impression they were added later, by someone other than Joplin.
This is all I remember:
Now the curtain is going up
The entertainer is taking a bow
Does his (dance step?) and sings his song
Even gets the audience to sing along…
Per sailor IIRC “The Entertainer” did not originally have lyrics. Any lyrics are after the fact add ons. I have heard it with lyrics and I think there are several versions of lyrics for it.
The popular version heard during the 70’s was from
I have a collection of ragtime sheet music at home. I know original Entertainer is in there, I believe it has the version with the lyrics as well. If nobody else can come up with the lyrics, I should be able to email any interested parties. Can’t post them here verbatim, you know.
When Marvin Hamlisch arranged “The Entertainer” for the movie, “The Sting,” he (or his lyricist) added lyrics and called the song, “If They Only Could See Me Now.”
I know this because I have “The Sting” Songbook sheet music.
Hope this helps.
Here’s what I remember:
Hello ladies and gentlemen.
…
…
…
and when we all get together
there’s no doubt as to whether
we can sing up a hullabaloooo.
where each dot is a beat I don’t remember the words to.
[sub]…Or maybe my third grade music teacher just made that all up for some nefarious purpose.[/sub]
Here are the lyrics that I learned in grade school:
Now the curtain is going up
The entertainer is taking a bow
Does his dance step and sings his song
Even get all the audience to sing along
Yes he knows what he just must do
Knows how to bring down the house when he’s through
It was Milton Berle who sang it with Rowlf on The Muppet Show.
Moving to Cafe Society from GQ.
Please note that this thread is more than seven years old.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I remember a bit more… (I was very young when I learned this, about 35 years ago so please forgive any errors)
Now the curtain is going up
The entertainer is taking a bow
Does his dance step and sings his song
Even get all the audience to sing along
Yes he knows just what he must do
Knows how to bring down the house when he’s through
Snappy patter and jokes
He knows what pleases the folks
The entertainer the star of the show.
It was in Vaudeville
And he was on the bill
With all the singers, dancers, acrobats and clowns
There was a dog act there
Even a dancing bear
And a comedian who never lets you down
But when he came on
To sing his favourite song
He really wowed them in the cities and the towns
They came from near and far
To see the Vaudeville star
The entertainer.
I hope this helps!
Regards,
Adam
Pish-posh. Ragtime is over a hundred.
…when I hit the stage, the crowd goes into a rage…
Also - …they’d be so proud of me in my hometown…
That’s what I remember; I had the sheet music as well.
UT
Johns Hopkins’ Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection has the original sheet music scanned as a PDF:
http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/catalog/levy:170.129
No lyrics exist on the original.
Um…should I feel like a dick for not knowing that Scott Joplin was black?
Only for thinking a white guy could have written such amazing music. 
He was, but did you come to that conclusion after looking at the caricature on the sheet music front? I don’t think that’s a portrait. 
No! I thought the caricature was rather crude…
I was looking to see why it’s called a ‘rag’…which led to reading about ‘ragtime’, which had a picture of Mr. Joplin.
And I said…wait. I want to remember exatly what I said. Ok. I think I remember:
“Bwwaaaaahhh??”