A popular song from 1924.
Words by Jack Yellen.
Music by Milton Charles & Wayne King.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- “You can talk all you want about women”
Said a sailor known as Dan McCann
“But if you want to know about women
You’ve got to talk to a sailor man
I don’t know how many I have met
And there isn’t any that I regret
But the lady who gave me a trimmin’
Is the gal I can’t forget
Chorus
“Her name was Hula Lou
The kind of gal who never could be true
She did her dancing in the evenin’ breeze
‘Neath the trees
Oh, how she used to shake her “Seaweed-dees”
I never knew
A man who wouldn’t shoot a Dan McGrew
And sail across the briny blue to woo
The lady known as Hula Lou”
Patter
I’ve travelled in and out
I’ve travelled back and forth
I’ve seen ’em in the south
And seen ’em in the North
I’ve seen ’em shakin’ East
And seen ’em shakin’ West
But she does her shakin’
Where the shakin’ is best
She’s got a Hula smile
And lots of Hula hair
She’s Hula, Hula here
And Hula, Hula there
She’s got the cutest eyes
Don’t know what shade they are
‘Cause looking from the ground
I never got that far
- “Any sailor will tell you this baby
Was the greatest vamp he ever knew
I know there ain’t a ship in the navy
Where she ain’t got a friend in the crew
There is not a cruiser on a wave
Without someone who’s her devited slave
And no matter how nasty she may be
She’s the one gal sailors crave”
Chorus
“Her name was Hula Lou
The kind of gal who never could be true
And ev’ry sailor who has travelled there
Will declare
She was the answer to a sailor’s pray’r
I never knew
A man who wouldn’t shoot a Dan McGrew
And sail across the briny blue to woo
The lady known as Hula Lou”
Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: