A blues novelty from 1921.
Revised 1929, renewed in 1950.
Words and music by W. C. Handy.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- Loveless love is like a gold-brick
In a bunco game
Like a banknote with a bogus name
Both have caused many down-falls
Love has done the same
Loveless love has for its emblem
Cupid with his bow
Loveless love has lots and lots of dough
So carry lots of jack and pick ’em as you go
Chorus
For love, love, oh loveless love, it’s messy
You set our hearts on goal-less goals, real messy
With dream-less dreams
And scheme-less schemes
We wreck our loveboats on the shoals
We s-o-s for help by wireless wire
And the wreckage of desire
We sigh for wings like Noah’s dove
Just to fly away from loveless love
- Loveless love is like a hydrant
It turns off and on
Like some friendships
When your money’s gone
Love stands in with loan sharks
When your heart’s in pawn
If I had a strong wing
Like an aeroplane
Had some broad wings
Like an aeroplane
I would fly away forever
Ne’er to come again
Chorus
Love, oh love, oh loveless love
Has set our hearts on goal-less goals
From milkless milk and silkless silk
We are growing used to soulless souls
Such grafting times we never saw
That’s why we have a pure food law
In ev’rything we find a flaw
Even love, oh love, oh loveless love
Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: