From “Ziegfeld Follies of 1911”
Words and music by Irving Berlin and Vincent Bryan
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- Down below the Dixie line in Alabam’
Lived a lovin’ piano player, Ephraham
‘Cause he never took a lesson
He had everybody guessin’
How he played with such a lovin’ tone
Any old piano that he could annoy
Ephraham would call an instrument of joy
When it came to make a piano
Cry out in a fancy manner
Ephraham was in a class alone
Chorus
Ephraham played upon the piano
Ephraham, he had a great left hand
Ephraham in his fancy manner
Made an upright sound like a “Baby Grand”
- Any kind of music he could understand
Still he didn’t play by ear, he played by hand
When he started fishin’
For the tune that you’d been wishin’
Every other good musician stepped aside
Ephraham was never known to lose his head
I remember once a certain lady said
“Can you play a fiddle, Mister?”
He looked up and answered, “Sister
I don’t know because I never tried”
Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: