From “LOUISIANA PURCHASE”, 1940.
Words and Music by Irving Berlin.
B&W Professional Copy.
Copyright ©1 Apr 1940.
“It’s News to Us”
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
Before we start the show
We’d like to have you know
The characters portrayed in our musical charade
Have not been based on persons living or dead
They’ve all been made up
Out of the author’s head, instead
The things that we reveal
Never happened, they’re not real
In spite of what you’ve heard
Or what you’ve read
the politicians we investigate
Could come from Maine or Kansas or Montana
So we laid our story in a mythical state
A mythical state we call Louisiana
Within our simple plot
You’ll notice quite a lot of references to crooks
Who have monkeyed with their books
And with those gentlemen we’re not too gentle
If they seem like men you’ve read about
It’s purely accidental
The law says shows like this one
Can get by with one restriction
It must be fiction
We’ve tried to stay within the law
That’s why we laid our scenes in New Orleans
A city we’ve invented
So that there would be no fuss
If there is such a place
It’s certainly news to us
Again the same old word
No matter what you’ve heard
The villains in our show
Are just characters and so
If an arrow seems to strike
Someone who’s investigated
If he looks to you just like
Someone to whom you’re related
Don’t go out and sue
We don’t mean you, it’s fiction
So don’t be temperamental
If you’re sons of millionaires
Don’t start trembling in your breeches
When a character declares
That you’re dirty sons of riches
Don’t go out and sue
We don’t mean you
The likeness is purely accidental
So please bear this in mind
Our show is of the mythical kind
The book is mythical
The score is mythical
To make them mythical was our only chance
The scenery’s mythical
The clothes are mythical
And now we’ll let our mythical show advance
And go into our mythical dance