Oxford Bags 1925

by James Pitt-Payne, London UK - 19Feb2025
2025

Up at Oxford youth is darling,
but our most tremendous "rags"
can't compare with those we're wearing,
famous now as Oxford Bags.
We go round like concertinas
wrapped in wrinkles,
clothed in kinks,
Rugger Blues in bright verbenas
Rowing Blues in Coral Pinks,
men of Madalen, men pf Queen's
looking sweet in Apple Greens!

The trousers of Oxford
are pink or maroon,
there's ten yards of flannel
in ev'ry festoon,
there's room for you,
there's room for me,
there's room for two,
there's room for three,
if you want a refuge
that no one can find,
you just get inside them
and pull down the blind,
debts may come and Duns may din,
you need never care a pin,
no one knows which leg you're in,
in your Oxford Bags.

The trousers of Oxford
are pink or maroon,
there's ten yards of flannel
in ev'ry festoon,
there's room for you,
there's room for me,
there's room for two,
there's room for three,
we wear them in Glossop
we wear them in Hants;
but oh! if a Wassop
gets into your pants,
you could scarcely
press your claim,
if that insect, taking aim,
stung you on the maker's name
in your Oxford Bags.

Year by year we've searched our noodles,
looking round for something new,
in the way of trouser models,
till one day we struck the Zoo;
as before, the lucky finder
looms the gold amid the dross,
gladly we behold the hinder end
of the rhinoseros!
There were trousers fair and fine,
full of legs and full of line!

The trousers of Oxford
are pink or maroon,
there's ten yards of flannel
in ev'ry festoon,
there's room for you,
there's room for me,
there's room for two,
there's room for three,
if you want a refuge
that no one can find,
you just get inside them
and pull down the blind,
debts may come and Duns may din,
you need never care a pin,
no one knows which leg you're in,
in your Oxford Bags.

The trousers of Oxford
are pink or maroon,
there's ten yards of flannel
in ev'ry festoon,
there's room for you,
there's room for me,
there's room for two,
there's room for three,
we wear them in Glossop
we wear them in Hants;
but oh! if a Wassop
gets into your pants,
you could scarcely
press your claim,
if that insect, taking aim,
stung you on the maker's name
in your Oxford Bags.

Soft karaoke
Words
piano 1
piano 2
piano 3
piano 4
lyric
pizz str bass
*
Oxford Bags 1925
From "Charlot's Revue"
Lyrics by Arthur Wimperis
Music by Philip Braham
© MCMXXV by Ascherberg, Hopwood & Crew Ltd.
*
sequence & karaoke by James Pitt-Payne, London UK
on Wednesday 19 February 2025 at 15.06
in association with Torquil Syme
*
James Pitt-Payne