a popular song from 1922
words by Geo. A. Little
music by Earl K. Smith
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- I had a dream the other night
I’ll tell the world it was a fright
I had a sort of conversation
With a ghost to his delight
He said, “I’ve come back just to say
They tho’t they buried me to stay
In nineteen-sixteen, deep in a grave green
But listen to me while I say”
Chorus
“I’m the ghost of that good man John Barleycorn
In the days of ancient hist’ry I was born
Now rich man, poor man, beggarman thief
I brought them joy that turned into grief
Hip! Sip! Hip! Sip!
Ah, That’s the time they start to slip
Then with my well known kick I knock ’em out
They’d wake up with a brown taste in their mouth
Now Mister Volstead on me hung a crepe
But while there’s still a “still” my spirit’s great
For I’m the ghost of that good man John Barleycorn”
- Now in my dream it seems I said
“Say please don’t hang around my bed
Because I know your reputation
Of your capers I have read”
He said, “I break up many homes
And poets knock me in their poems
But like a villain, I’m always willin’
To whip a Smith, a Brown, or Jones”
Sung here by Fred Feild: