Chinese Firecrackers

From “Ziegfeld Follies of 1920”
Words and music by Irving Berlin


The sheet music:


Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:


Lyrics

Charlie Younge lay smoking
On his bunk one night
Something happened
Filling Charlie Younge with fright
Someone placed a bunch of firecrackers
Under his bunk
And touched the stem of each of them
With a piece of lighted punk
Charlie jumped up in the air
Filled with rage he started to swear

Refrain
“Hop Toy, Ming Foy, Sing Goy, Ung Loy
Suey Pow, Yenshee Gow Main”
That bunch of crackers exploded
With a bing, bang, boom
And so did Charlie Younge
In his native tongue, with a
“Hop Toy, Ming Foy, Sing Goy, Ung Loy
Hunka Chinee punk”, which means
“Who the ‘hell-ee’ put those firecrackers
Under my bunk?”