A popular song from 1910.
Words by Edgar Selden.
Music by C. F. Zittel.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- There’s a lot of chin and chatter
In the papers every day
About the daffy bughouse things
Some boneheads do and say
Of all the topsy turvy stunts
Nothing they won’t try
From submarines if they’ve the means
To airships in the sky
I visited a rest retreat
To see the patients there
The minute that I slipped inside
They all began to stare
I said to one, “It’s very sad
Explain to me your case?”
Said he, “If you think I’m insane
It’s you that’s off your base”
Chorus
Who’s loony now?
Everyone thinks someone else
Is batty as can be
Then they’ll say your “nutty”
If you with them you don’t agree
You may not look leary
But you will be anyhow
If you just act mulish
You’re locked up as foolish
Who’s loony now?
- A fifteen dollar clerk was courting
Fickle Fanny Flotz
But she preferred another guy
With blocks of building lots
She said she couldn’t see for hers
No two-room top floor flat
She said she wanted space enough
At least to keep her hat
She tied up with the wealthy one
But he went on the blink
He ran ’round with the ponies
And their footwork made him drink
Again she met the passed up clerk
But he rode in his car
His fingers full of diamonds
And he said, “Stay where you are”
Chorus
Who’s loony now?
Everyone thinks someone else
Is batty as can be
Then they’ll say your “nutty”
If you with them you don’t agree
You may not look leary
But you will be anyhow
She was once his “daisy”
Told him he was crazy
Who’s loony now?
- The hobble skirts have hobbled off
And we’ll see them no more
But nothing’s been discovered yet
To stop a woman’s jaw
Don’t think by this I’m impolite
But have you ever met
That howling prowling scowling scold
They call a “Suffragette?”
She makes poor hubby stay at home
While she goes to the club
And chews and chews ’bout “Equal Rights”
While he scrubs at the tub
He cooks the meals, he makes the bed
And does the housework fine
Then she rolls in at 3 A. M.
And tells him he’s a shine
Chorus
Who’s loony now?
Everyone thinks someone else
Is batty as can be
Then they’ll say your “nutty”
If you with them you don’t agree
You may not look leary
But you will be anyhow
If you dare to rile ’em
You for the asylum
Who’s loony now?
Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: