Then this should be a revelation.
These are the lyrics I learned in school – apparently as recorded by Ray Conniff. If I ever see that music teacher again he’s a dead man. Even when it was uber-over exposed after The Sting came out, it was a nice piece of music but 40 years later it’s still marred in my mind by those inane, juvenile lyrics.
I can’t get them out of my head; I don’t want them there and someone should pay!
I have a collection 75 Super Blockbusters for ‘74 with those lyrics credited to John Brimhall. He was a very prolific musical arranger. This would have been one of his ways to make classics accessible to beginning players.
What’s weirder is Scott Joplin’s breakthrough hit Maple Leaf Rag also has lyrics. That song is not made for lyrics.
“Go 'way man, I can hypnotize the nation,
I can shake the earth’s foundation with the Maple Leaf Rag.
Go 'way man, just hold your breath a minute,
'Cause there’s not a stunt that’s in it with the Maple Leaf Rag.”
Yeah, those lyrics suck. I’m glad the song survived them.
Would it surprise anyone that the Charleston dance song had lyrics too?
Let’s play the Zombie Rag!!
Please tell me the lyricists have kept their filthy paws off my beloved “Elite Syncopations”.
As far as I know, they have. That piece is supposedly an instrumental representation of the romantic advances of a bold Progressive Era man toward a prim and elagant woman who flirts back in a very proper way until the glorious finale that is their union as a couple.
Words for this are best left to the imagination.
Aw, I actually kinda like the Maple Leaf Rag lyrics. “Hypnotize the nation/Shake the earth’s foundation” is pretty darn good IMHO and fits the complexity of the music quite well.
I do like the lyrics to Pineapple Rag better:
“Hear me sigh, hear me cry/For that Pineapple Rag
What a dream! It sure does seem/Like heaven when we drag…”
There’s also a line going something like “talk like that is out of season/What I like is something pleasing/Pineapple Rag for mine.” Again, the lyrics fit the music quite well. IMHO anyway.
Inspired? Nah. Fun? Sure. Appropriate for the time period? Absolutely. I think the music works best without the lyrics but the words certainly don’t bother me.
Should perhaps be noted that the lyrics for both of these two rags were created during Joplin’s lifetime. Perhaps with his input (if memory serves) and certainly with his blessing. It helped that this was another source of income for someone who often didn’t have very much money. My understanding is that the lyrics for the Entertainer were not from Joplin’s own time, but date from many years afterwards. Thus, less “authentic “ for those who care about such things.
The only Scott Joplin music where I want to hear lyrics are in his opera Treemonisha. I was a subscriber to Chicago’s Lyric Opera for about twenty years, and they never did perform it. Douches.