A popular song from 1921.
Words and music by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby.
Song suggested by Paul Charosh.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- Across the way from where I live
There lives a girl and her name is Rebecca
She’s twenty-three
She saw an oriental show and then decided she would go
To Mecca across the sea
And so she went one day
To Turkey far away
And she lived near the Sultan’s den
She stayed there just two years
Got full of new ideas
And now she’s back home again
Chorus
Since Rebecca came back from Mecca
All day long she keeps on smoking Turkish tobecca
With her veil upon her face
She keeps dancing ’round the place
And yesterday her father found her
With a Turkish tow’l around her
Oh! Oh! Everyone’s worried so
They think she’s crazy in the dome
She’s as bold as Theda Bara
Theda’s bare but Becky’s barer
Since Rebecca came back home
- In Mecca where the nights are hot
Rebecca got an awful of learning
She cert’nly did
She goes to sleep when shadows creep
And has to keep a bowl of incense burning
Some classy kid
Her mother feels so sad
Her brother Moe is mad
And he keeps on complaining so
To satisfy her whim she keeps on calling him
“Mohammed” instead of Moe
Chorus
Since Rebecca came back from Mecca
All day long she keeps on smoking tobecca
She lays on a Turkish rug
Ev’ryone says she’s a bug
And since she’s back home from the Harem
She has clothes but she don’t wear ’em
Oh! Oh! Ev’ryone’s worried so
She made the Sultan lose his throne
Once her little sister Sonia
Wore her clothes and got pneumonia
Since Rebecca came back home
Sung here by Fred Feild: