From “The Passing Show 1915”
Words by Arthur Wimperis and Hartley Carrick
Music by Herman Finck
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- The Police regulations I can’t understand
For the streets are so foolishly dim
While the amorous clerk
With his girl in the Park
Gets a couple of search lights on him
And this horrible ten o’clock closing affair
Is a slight upon temperate men
For you can’t sit and dine
Feeling over-benign
When you’ve got to be over by ten
Refrain
Tick-tock! Look at the clock
They have shut up the Station canteen
But altho’ it’s gone ten
We can get it, but when?
When you hear the clock strike thirteen
Tick-tock! Put back the clock
To the glorious days that have been
When we stayed at the club
Or our favourite pub
Till we heard the clock strike thirteen
- Theatrical Managers clamour today
For a scene that is spicy and chic
What is risky, they say
Brings a rush to the play
If the play brings a blush to the cheek
If we don’t stand aloof from My Lady’s Undress
In the bedroom of somebody’s flat
We are well on the path
To a play in the bath
And we can’t stand a-loofah from that
Refrain
Tick-tock, put back the clock
To the plays that were wholesome and clean
Must the public be fed
With those scenes with a bed
Till we hear the clock strike thirteen?
Tick-tock, prepare for a shock
An original play will be seen
With a waltz that is new
By an Englishman, too
When you hear the clock strike thirteen
- There is nothing today that they don’t advertise
From the “Hundred Best Books” on the shelves
From the pills that are blue
To the ditto Revue
Then we start advertising ourselves
And the Tatler comes out with a large double page
“Aristocracy helping at Guys”
On the left of the group
Lady A., making soup
On the right, Lady B., making eyes
Refrain
Swank, swank, riches and rank
Are a huge advertising machine
You may see Lady X
Writing charity cheques
Till you hear the clock strike thirteen
Yes, yes, look at the Press
In the place where the news should have been
She will pose as a nurse
Making Tommies much worse
Till you hear the clock strike thirteen
- The Chancellor wasn’t a popular chap
In the days when he made us disgorge
His inflammable ways set the Country ablaze
Till we called him our Celluloid George
Bue we take off our hats to himself and his pals
And we wish ’em all jolly good luck
But between you and me
There are just two or three
Who might safely be given the chuck
Refrain
Oh, these clever M. P.’s
Never seem to know quite what they mean
But McKenna will find
That he knows his own mind
When you hear the clock strike thirteen?
Great Scott, traitors were shot
When Elizabeth reigned as our queen
And Keir Hardie, we hope
Will get plenty of rope
But before the clock strikes thirteen
Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: