From the musical “Watch Your Step”, 1914
Words and music by Irving Berlin
Quotes tunes from several popular operas
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
Aida, there’s not a melody sweeter
But you’ll be sweeter when we begin
Turning you into a rag
Aida, we’re gonna chop up your meter
We’re getting tired of you and so
Here’s where we’re going to
Hurdy gurdy Mister Verdi
Op’ra, you always sound like an uproar
And that’s the reason it’s not a sin
Turning you into a rag
You’ll soon be placed with the popular taste
For we’re going to rearrange you
Change you to a rag
Dreamy, La Boheme
We will hesitate to you
Tho’ we aggravate Puccini
He may roar and scream
Nevertheless we will hesitate to La Boheme
Op’ra lovers if you’ll grant us your pardon
We’ll take the Garden scene from Faust
And we’ll rearrange the flower song
And call it our song
Because it’s melody makes a dreamy Maxixe
Op’ra lovers if you do not approve
Of what we remove of Faust
Just “roust” and occupy back seats while we maxixe
To the Flower song from Faust
Everybody’s doing it so we’ll do the tango
To the strains of Carmen
O’er the floor
Let ev’ry Carmen take a Toreador
And throw her arms around him
While they go dancing
To that entrancing melody
There’s something in the rhythm of that refrain
That suits us perfectly
That’s the reason we do the Tango to
The Carmen melody
Chorus
Oh, you Pagliacci
You make a wonderful one-step
A barrel of fun-step
And so before we’re through
We’ll make a one-step out of you
We like you Pagliacci
Because your melody mellow
By Leon Cavallo
Affords us something new
And so we’ll one-step to you
Please don’t rag my melody
We hate to tantalize you
But we mean to modernize you
Let my Rigoletto be
We want you syncopated
Even though we know you hate it
Tell me why you pick on me
Because you’re out of fashion, syncopation is our passion
Really I’m as mad as a man can be
So are we, so are we
You know it’s wrong
What’s wrong? What’s wrong?
To change my song
Your song is wrong
‘Twill drive me mad
Too bad, too bad
You’ll have to stop!
No! No! No! No!
I ask you not to rag my melody
You’ll never recognize it
From the way that we’ll disguise it
Tell me why, oh, why does it have to be
We’re growing weary of your dreary little melody
That’s why we play it the way it ought to be
You needn’t bother
I would rather you would let it be
There’s nothing to it, we’ll do it easily
Please don’t
We will
Don’t rag my Rigoletto
We will
Again I say
What do you say? What do you say?
You’ll have to stop
No!
Yes!
No!
Yes!
No!
Yes!
No!
Yes!
No!
You’ll have to stop
No! No! No! No!
Why are you tired of my melody
We hate to pay admission for your dreary composition
It doesn’t sound the same to me
You’ll notice in a minute that we put some ginger in it
You have changed the harmony
You must admit it’s sweeter even though we changed the meter
Won’t you spare my poor Rigoletto
Oh, you know, it’s slow and so
We’ll sprinkle on your melody a bit of originality
Kindly spare it
We will tear it
Don’t you dare it
You must bear it
Stop!
We’re going to rag it
Stop!
We’re going to rag it
Stop!
We’re going to rag it
Stop!
We’re going to rag it
No!
Rag, rag, rag, rag your Rigoletto
No!
Oh, you Pagliacci
You make a wonderful one-step
A barrel of fun-step
And so before we’re through
We’ll make a one-step out of you
We like you Pagliacci
Because your melody mellow
By Leon Cavallo
Affords us something new
And so we’ll one-step to you
Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: