From “Wake Up and Dream”, 1929
Words and music by Cole Porter
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- Joe plays the banjo and plays every night
Under a lazy moon
I know what Joe’s gonna play all right
He only knows one tune
It may be a limited repertory
Still every note of it tells a story
Refrain:
When that man Joe makes that banjo
Play that old tune I adore
San Francisco, dear old ‘Frisco,
Calls me ‘cross the prairies once more
Something lingers in his fingers
That reminds me of early days
And I’m back with my Amanda
On that old-fashioned veranda
That’s why I make propaganda
For the banjo that man Joe plays
- Whenever Joe starts that old song of mine
Somehow my memory strays
Back to the Gold Coast in forty-nine
Back to those good old days
A banjo is playing and there’s Miss Mandy
Strumming that tune for her favorite dandy
Sung by Laurence Rubenstein: