1919 song version of the famous 1914 instrumental.
Words by James S. Sumner.
Music by Euday L. Bowman.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment:
Lyrics
- In a certain city, where
The girls are cute and pretty
They have a raggy jazzy jazztime tune
When you hear that syncopated
Jazz created melody
You could dance all morning night and noon
When the slide trombone and moaning
Saxophone begin to play
It will make you sad, ’twill make you glad
Oh! Boy, what joy
Burn my clothes for I’m in Heaven
Wish I had a million women
Solomon in all his glory
Could have told another story
Were he but living here today
With his thousand wives or more
A Jazz band on some Egypt shore
He could dance the night and day away
I will tell you how they dance
That tantalizing 12th Street Rag
Chorus
First you slide and then you glide
Then shimmie for a while
To the left then to the right
“Lame Duck” “Get over Sal”
Watch your step then Pirouette
Fox Trot, then squeeze your pal
Over you comes stealing such a funny feeling
‘Till you feel your senses reeling
Tantalizing, hypnotizng, mesmerizing strain
I can’t get enough of it, please play it o’er again
I could dance forever to this refrain
To that 12th Street, oh you 12th Street Rag
- Jazztime music is the rage
This is a syncopated age
Everybody loves a jazztime tune
For the music captivating
Sets your heart a palpitating
You just can’t make your feet behave
Ancients, youths of sixty four
Do steps they never did before
Father time is mad, no one grows old
Oh! Boy, what joy
Put your loving arms around me
Say Babe, ain’t you glad you found me
Cleopatra on the Nile
Could vamp right in the latest style
If she’d only known this ragtime tune
Old King Cole a merry soul
Called for his pipe and then his bowl
And the first jazz band his fiddlers three
Play, oh play me while I dance
That tantalizing 12th Street Rag
Sung here by Fred Feild: