Digital Tradition Mirror

The Boaster

The Boaster

      D       A7    D                       A7
D
I've been to gay Paree, where the women at half past three
        A7
Come strolling along where the boys belong
 A7                D
Hollering ta-rara-boom-teeyay;

I've danced the oyster can, down on the American plan;
I shed great tears when I got three years
For stealing a couple of extra steers;

I've been to Kansas C.; I've been out on a spree;
I've been in jail and out on bail
And I've been on a ship that would not sail;

I've been to Ohio, likewise to Buffalo,
Indianapolis, Cincinnata,
Louisville and Camay-o;

I've been up in a balloon; I've been to a saloon;
I've been in a soak and I've been dead broke
And I drank and I drank till I thought I would croak,

And I've been an awful dude, and sometimes rather rude;
I've had hard luck and I've been dead stuck
And I've been the driver of a two-horse truck;

I've been in many a scrap; I've had a real hard slap;
Mine eyes have been draped in mourning and crepe;
For a year and a half I've been stuck on the shakes;

I've slept in bum hotels, paid prices that were swell,
Slept in bum beds and dying bled
And chasing the bedbugs round my head;

Played bumper once or twice, with cards and shaking dice;
Bet a house and a lot and a fourteen-spot;
I pulled my leg plumb full of knots;

I've often played baseball; I've been umpire and all;
Been hit with clubs and sticks and bricks
And bounded about in a terrible fix;

Been to Chicago too, that place where the wind was rude;
I went to a fair where they clipped my hair
And charged me a dollar an inch for air;

I've been down on the track, at a racehorse not too crack;
Bet a ten or two on a horse I knew
But the horse dropped dead and he never came to;

I've lived on pork and beans; I've slept in rooms thirteen;
Been out at night and I've seen the sights
And I've hit the pike by the candlelight;

I've been to Salt Lake too; 'twas the only place I knew
Where the girls are beauties and they does their duties
And they chews the gum called the Tuttsi-Frutties;

I've been to Indi-ann; I've stepped on a banann;
I slipped, I fell, I hurt like hell,
But the words I used I must not tell;

I also rode a wheel, and I run on an automobile;
I made a gold strike and I had a prizefight
And since that night I've never been right;

I fought for the blue and the gray; I've slept on a bale of hay;
I drove a mule, taught public school,
But I never could find that golden rule;

I drank red lemonade that's made with a posthole spade;
I've shot snipes by electric lights
And I marched with the Salvation Army at night;

I've been in politics, too; oh, how the money flew;
In Tammany Hall I had a close call,
But I never could learn to sing "After the Ball";

I've been where I didn't belong; you've heard this lovely song;
Now these are all facts, but I made some cracks
And I'll get it in the neck where the two men got the ax.

Deseret String Band (Salt Lake City)
RPf

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!