A popular song from 1918
Words by Alfred Bryan
Music by Fred Fisher
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- When the stars began to twinkle
On the mountain Rip Van Winkle
One fine day, hit the hay so they say
With his head upon a pillow
Underneath a weeping willow
Took a peep then he went to sleep
Twenty years he lay asleep the story goes
But I found out different from someone who knows
Chorus
Rip Van Winkle slept with one eye open
Way up in the mountain so high
He saw the spooners under the trees
Gay honeymooners learning to squeeze
Down the mountain he came every evening
To watch his wifey all alone, Oh!
He saw her dancing with a neighbor and then
Turned right around went up the mountain again
Say, Rip Van Winkle slept with one eye open
That’s why he never went home
- Once upon a midnight dreary
As he pondered weak and weary
Someone sighed by the side of his side
He turned ’round and got an earful
Saw a couple looking cheerful
There to spoon, on their honeymoon
Old Rip asked her for a kiss and that is why
Someone swung on Rip and closed his other eye
Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: