Paradise Blues

(Oh! Pretty Papa! Oh! Pretty Papa!)
A 1916 popular song.
Words by Walter Hirsch.
Music by Spencer Williams.


Sheet music provided by Nicholas Leunissen:


Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:


Lyrics

  1. Down old Mobile way in a cabaret
    There sits ragtime Lew
    He can show you how to Blue on that piano
    Any night at all Miss Lucinda Hall
    Drifts into the place
    With a smile tells him to Blue on that piano
    Maybe she’ll start to sigh
    Maybe she’ll start to cry, pleadingly she’ll say

Chorus
Honey, don’t play me no Op’ra
Play me some blue melody
I don’t care nothin’ ’bout Carmen
When you play that harmony
Oh! that’s it, Honey Babe
Oh, won’t you play that strain again
Oh Pretty Papa, Oh, Pretty Papa
It sure do tantalize
Lay right on those piano keys
I feel that feelin’ way down in my knees
‘Cause when you play the Blues
I’m right in Paradise

  1. Not so long ago Little Sadie Snow
    Thought she’d call on Lew
    And she asked to hear him Blue on that piano
    He began to play, she began to sway
    Before he was through
    All the folks just got the Blues from that piano
    Each time he’d try to stop
    Somebody else would hop up to him and say

Sung here by Vancha March: