A popular song from 1926
Words and music by Irving Berlin
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
I’ve been trav’ling far and wide
Over on the other side
And it’s strange what a change
Is happ’ning all around
Years ago it used to be
Shaking hands across the sea
Now we meet shaking feet
For that is what I found
Chorus
Ev’ryone in the world is doing the Charleston
They do it in London, they do it in France
In Spain and Italy and in Germany they all Charleston
No matter how far you roam away from home
You’ll find them doing that dance
That certain step that was all the craze
With those Lenox Avenue shieks
Is being done by the Portuguese
The Armenians and the Greeks
Papers say that most ev’ry day there’s a European who
Sprained his knee in the Charleston, Charleston
Because they’re all doing it now
Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: