(or Microbes on the Brain)
A popular song from 1902.
Words by W. W. Hall.
Music by Edmund Braham.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
1. Poor Mulligan was in great dread
Of microbes in the air
On food and bathtub and his bed
He saw them everywhere
They mocked him from the looking glass
They sat upon his chair
They travelled on his railroad pass
And kissed his girl so fair
They swam around his plate of soup
In milk and sugar bowl
They glanced up from his coffee cup
And wiped upon his towel
They’d float beside the ferry boat
Then see him home again
They disputed his election vote
He’d got ’em on the brain
Chorus:
Oh, say! Pity Barney Mulligan
His fancies would not let him eat or rest
Sleep, wash or get into a bath again
Everything for microbes he would test
Oh, yes! Poor old Barney Mulligan
The microbes really drove him quite insane
He died! Yet they got at him again
He’s back once more with microbes on the brain
2. He worried to a shadow quite
He could not eat or sleep
He’d wake so often in the night
As microbes at him peep
They got upon his street door keys
He got them in his mail
They’d hang on straps of trolley cars
And pull his pet dog’s tail
He feared at last to draw a breath
And died, in coffin strong
They laid him in the ground beneath
But not to stay there long
For back he comes both pale and thin
And says, “May he be blessed
If the microbes in the coffin
Will even let him rest”