A smoking song to go with all the drinking songs, 1905.
words by Harry B. Smith
music by Victor Herbert
This song appeared in the musical comedy Miss Dolly Dollar. It is set in a mens smokers’ club. The lyrics were inspired by a Rudyard Kipling quote from The Betrothed: “A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.”
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- If a pair of blue eyes have deceived you
And a pair of red lips said you nay
Don’t appeal to champagne, all its bubbles are vain
You will only feel worse the next day
Just forget fortune’s snub and drop in at the club
Where you know all the good fellows are
There the tonic you’re after is gossip and laughter
You light up a long dark cigar
Chorus
Puff, puff, puff, puff
Watching the smoke a-rising
Puff, puff, puff, puff
Soon you’ll be realizing
That which the poet has written is true
All love is a practical joke
For a woman is only a woman, my boy
But a good cigar is a smoke
- When you find that your latest flirtation
Is becoming too serious quite
And you’re getting too fond of a brunette or blonde
Call a halt, lad, and set yourself right
Love perhaps ends in smoke, but its rings are no joke
They disolve not nor vanish afar
They are put on to stay there, they won’t float away there
Like rings you blow from your cigar
Sung here by Fred Feild: