A popular song from 1913
Words and music by Irving Berlin
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- Once a vocal teacher
Said to Mabel Beecher
“I think your singing voice is very canary!
It needs cultivation
For a demonstration
I’ll charge you ‘Ten’ to cultivate it”
She paid it
Twice a week Miss Mabel
Scrapes the money up somehow
Twice a week he teaches her
To vocalize, and now
Chorus:
All day long she’s singing
“Tra, la, la, la! Tra, la, la, la!”
When her voice starts ringing
“Tra, la, la, la! Tra, la, la, la!”
All the neighbors get together and cry
“It’s most unbearable, terrible!
Why do they let her suffer?”
Everybody hollers “Tie a can-o to her Soprano!”
All her aunts and uncles
When they heard her, hollered “Murder!”
Every day a neighbor moves away
From her “Tra, la, la, la! Tra, la, la, la!
Tra, la, la, la, la!”
- Landlord sent a “Cable”
Saying “Dear Miss Mabel
Your voice is good for breaking leases to pieces
My advice, Miss Beecher
Is, give up your teacher
Your singing voice needs no improving”
They’re moving!
June, July and August finds her relatives in tears
Just because they must go ’round
With earmuffs on their ears