25 ME Song (Wilkins) 1902 'Merrie England'

Dr. Pitt-Payne in London UK - 12 May 2003

Perhaps you don't imagine
how important nowadays
is the part, (outside a theatre),
imagination plays.
For our life is like a playhouse,
where the livers wouldn't act,
if our facts were never fancy,
and our fancies always fact.
From the Laureate, who fancies
that in any gassy prose,
(which is turned out in a meter),
a poetic fancy glows,
to the youth on one and twenty,
who imagines, when he dines,
that he doesn't fancy any
but the most expensive wines.
He will take a glass of sherry
and imagine it is nice,
(tho' it's only elderberry),
if he pays a fancy price;
but the elderberry nowadays
is going out of use,
and the younger current fancy,
is the berry of the goose.

There's the boy who fancies smoking
is a pleasure so profound,
that he'll very soon imagine
that it makes the world go round;
and the LawCase, where you fancy
there is money to be got,
but the Law is such a lottery
and Lawyers draw the lot!
The imaginary invalid,
who fancies she is ill,
after reading the advertisement
of someone's patent pill,
will hurry to her doctor,
whom she counts a "perfect dear"
(for his practice makes him perfect,
and I don't know what a year.)
And the honour of the medical profession,
as you'll see, with imaginative patients
is a matter of degree;
for the doctor is in luck,
and heavy fees will never lack,
whom the ladies call a "duck"
(and other doctors call a quack.)

To those about to marry,
don't imagine you are doves
who can bill and coo for ever
and be happy with your loves.
Imagine you can bill and coo
for ever if you will
but don't imagine turtle doves
can coo without a bill.
Don't imagine that a cottage loaf
is ever fancy bread
and don't imagine ev'rything
is butter if it's spread;
don't imagine, if your grocer
is particularly bland,
that you need not take your sugar
with a grain or two of sand.
And if the kitchen boiler
should induce you to employ
that contemplative toiler,
a plumber and his boy,
when at last he takes his coat off,
don't imagine he will plumb;
that's the moment he'll imagine
that his dinner hour has come!

Soft karaoke
Words
str 25
str 50
str 110
brass 75
flute
clarinet
piano t clef
pizz str
*
25 ME Song (Wilkins) 1902
Music by Sir Edward German
Lyrics by Capt. Basil Hood
Copyright MCMII by Chappell and Co.
sequence and karaoke by Dr. Pitt-Payne in London UK
on Monday 12 May 2003 at 10.51
in association with Doug Grierson
*