A comic song from 1917.
Words by Stanley Murphy.
Music by Albert Gumble.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- When I was just a little kidlet
Once upon a time
My mother used to send me
To the store with just a dime
And I’d bring home a sirloin steak
Quite big enough for three
And mother dear, the good old soul
Would give the change to me
Then eighty cents bought ma a hat
All trimm’d with silk and plush
Today I paid a dollar
For a plate of oatmeal mush
Chorus
Ev’rything is going up, going up
And now the price of gasoline
Is sixty cents a cup
You pay as much for calico
As mother paid for silk
And you used to get champagne
For what they’re charging now for milk
The latest styles in ladies shoes
Go ‘way up to their knees
It’s shocking how much stocking
Ev’ry man on Broadway sees
And the dresses they’re no higher
On the Island of Hawaii
For ev’rything is going, going, going up
- When I grew up I used to
Take my girl to see a show
And after it was over to a restaurant we’d go
And how we would enjoy ourselves
It surely was immense
And I remember once it cost me nearly ninety cents
Just take a hundred-dollar bill along with you today
And go the route and try to make it last you all the way
Chorus
Ev’rything is going up, going up
They pay ten thousand dollars
For a Pomeranian pup
You buy a hat for “ten”
And that’s the price that they expect
It costs you fifteen dollars ev’ry month
To have it checked
The Russians run so fast
And they wear out so many shoes
The price of leather’s altogether
Higher now than booze
And now Tiffany is getting
Out a ring with coal for setting
For ev’rything is going, going, going up
- On Saturday when work was o’er
My dad would bring home “ten”
My mother paid the grocer
And the butcher, too, and then
She’d lay away a little
For the old piano man
Who sold us our piano
On the monthly payment plan
We never went without a thing
My ma was strong on “eats”
The other day I paid ten dollars
For a peck of beets
Chorus
Ev’rything is going up, going up
It costs you fifty dollars
In a restaurant to “sup”
A fellow bought a hundred thousand
Shares of Bethl’hem steel
And now the neighbors say that
He has eggs at ev’ry meal
They weigh things by the carat
That they once sold by the peck
The ladies wear their waistline
Where they used to wear their neck
If you are not a great winner
You can eat and still grow thinner
For ev’rything is going, going, going up
Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: