Chansonette (Joachim Ringelnatz) There are warts on the body of my blue-blooded lord And the sight of a skirt sends him screwy Father's lying dead on the ironing board And he reeks of Lux and Drambuie If the holy man peeks underneath my dress I'll be rich you say --don't kid me Remember my brother, the one who's good at chess? They've just taken out his kidney Have you lost your faith and do you play bezique My sister's baby's due in September That man is a cad and looks an utter freak I'll pay you back that quid if I remember By the way I need a corset with a zip And a season ticket out of season I'd like to be a nun, or learn to do a strip Sometimes I start crying without reason Bertha de Sade (Joachim Ringelnatz) The marquesa Bertha de Sade Who lived in a castle of course Concealed in her gothic pissoir A lion as large as a hobbyhorse And at her notorious, much-cherished and hair-raising orgies, we hear The female carousers all turned out in trousers And plied all the men with absinthe and with (???) Eventually all the males perished... When no more men came crawling She trampled her lion to bits And strangled her ladies, the darling, and knocked out two gents who came calling in plain clothes to serve her with writs In the end she drank petrol and then she ate plum pudding and wrote to the Fire Brigade Now all is void, all gone, decayed And nothing is left but her gothic two-seater For nothing will grow on the lion's excreta The ruined seat is weed-infested And this is terribly sa-a-d For here lies Bertha de Sade Entombed and much-digested (Entombed and much-digested) Hafen-Kneipe (Joachim Ringelnatz) In the seamens' pub in Wapping See them sitting if you're stopping Hand in hand While you're getting quietly pissed there They will offer you their sister Though the girl is black and from a foreign land In the seamens' pub in Wapping You can often see a fight There's a roughhouse every night But the sailors who drop in there Drown their sorrows in their gin, they're Buying rounds and feeling glad There's much coming and much going With the beer mugs overflowing Absent guests remember and are sad And the memories of long-forgotten faces You may have adored there or ignored there Come to haunt you with their ghostly traces In the seamens' pub in Wapping See them sitting if you're stopping Hand in hand Tootsies (Klabund) Mother's pregnant in some clinic Brother Ernie is a spiv Uncle Alfred says (the cynic) We're too Catholic to live Sister Suzy's always praying To the statues on the shelf And I'm dangling my tootsies While I'm singing to myself I was picked up with my dolly By a lovely gentleman He bought me an ice cream lolly Took me to the park and then He drew out his bulging wallet And he told me "Help yourself!" Soon I'm dangling my tootsies While he whistles to himself Father's lost a year's remission And his moll is hopping mad Solitary's his condition Mother's feeling awful bad Father's never had it better Mugs of cocoa on the shelf And he's dangling his tootsies While he's locked up by himself Sometimes when the moon is rising Then I feel all queer and limp And my Bill I'm visualizing He was my boyfriend and a pimp And I dream that they will hang him And that I'll stay on the shelf And he's dangling his tootsies While he's swinging by himself The Horse (Joachim Ringelnatz) There lived within the city walls of Bremen A most peculiar undertaker's drayman Who proved he was the nastiest of males By pulling off his helpless horses' tails Hopla! And this addiction was a dreadful curse He was no longer fit to drive his hearse He took to drink and started up afresh And learned to slaughter horses for their flesh Hopla! And if you saw him sitting in his kitchen With headless horses' tails that still were twitchin' And if you asked him what he charged per ounce He'd throw a fit and scream and yell "To hounds! Tally ho!" And as he made a really bad impression He was obliged to give up the profession And he became at last, the silly fool, A porter in a body-building school Hopla! And there he learned to lead a life monastic Amongst the implements of high gymnastic Until one night he fell down roaring drunk Next to the wooden horse and other junk Hopla! When midnight struck he started realizing Each single hair upon his head was rising And suddenly he saw --this made him quail-- A handsome horse quite without head or tail Hopla! And very soon the phantom nag's proportion Had undergone a curious distortion It grew gigantic, fabulous and fat Until it stopped, quite suddenly, like that! Hopla! And then for lack of proper horse's droppings It squirted sawdust at him without stopping And shouted "Daddy, who can torture beasts, Get with it, and jump over me at least!" Hopla! And so he jumped across the wooden charger And as he jumped his jumps grew large and larger He fell and jumped and jumped and fell in tears It seemed that he was doing it for years! Hopla! Hopla! Hopla! Hopla! Hopla! Hopla! When morning broke the time came to release him The phantom horse at last broke down beneath him He woke and swore he'd stop this nightly boozing But found while sweat from every pore was oozing That on his chin so carefully shaved of course there Sprouted an enormous beard of horsehair! Ballad of the poor child (Frank Wedekind) There was a child so good and kind The child was poor, the child was blind Yes, both its eyes were blind One rainy day there did appear A poor old man who couldn't hear He simply couldn't hear They both went on together then The poor blind child, the deaf old man The poor blind child, the deaf old man One night they passed a little hut From which emerged a lame old slut A dirty, lame old slut She'd been run over in the street Whereby she'd lost one of her feet She lost one of her feet They all went on together then The poor blind child, the deaf old man The lame old slut, who left her den An old maid in her 40th year To stay a virgin was her fear It was her dreadful fear To punish her who was so weird God struck her with a goaty beard A real, a goaty beard She pleaded, "Let me go with you Dear people let me go with you A miracle might still come true" A mangy dog, no longer smooth Was left without a single tooth Without a single tooth He found a bone, it was no good He could not masticate his food Not masticate his food He trotted with the other four The lame old beast so ill and sore The poor old dog so lame and sore A poet lived in dire need He never had enough to eat Not half enough to eat He poured his heart, his soul, his head Into his work, which noone read 'Twas worse than being dead The poor old dog who licked his hand And followed him across the land Was now his one and only friend His luck changed suddenly one day He wrote a most amazing play A most amazing play! He made immortal with his pen The poor blind child, the deaf old man The child and the old man The lame old slut, the virgin weird The virgin with the goaty beard The virgin with the goaty beard They made an energetic start For each one was to play a part To learn that part by heart And the production, slick and smooth Was by the dog without a tooth The dog without a tooth The stage was set, on went the light The curtain rose on the first night The critics raved, as well they might The audience cheered them long and loud The dog was carried by the crowd And everyone was proud The royalties began to flow And people queued to see the show Wherever they would go In Europe, Asia, Africa and even in America In North and South America The moral of this little tale It's awful to be sick and pale And poor and old and frail The Poet's Dream, the Muse's Kiss Will turn adversity to bliss To pure and lasting bliss Then courage and the belly swell The virgin's belly swells as well For they have conquered Bloody Hell The hurdy-gurdy (Jacques Prevert) "I play the piano" said one "I the fiddle" another "I the banjo", "I the harp" "I the clarinet" "I play the bagpipes", "I the flute" "And I the flageolet" And they all began to talk talk talk talk Of what they played Nobody heard any music For their talk-talk talk-talk talk-talk And nobody played But in the corner a man sat silent "What do you play, good sir?" they said "Who sit so silently with nothing at all to say" "I play the hurdy-gurdy The knife I also play" Said the man who sat so silently With nothing at all to say And he advanced with knife in hand And solemnly killed the entire band And he played the hurdy-gurdy And his music was so true So pretty and so new That the master's little girl came out from under the piano stool Shaking her sleepy head and said "Oh --I've played at hoop and hide-and-seek At hopscotch too I've played And once I played with a bucket And once I played with a spade But that's all over and done done done I want to play at murder But that's all over and done, I want to Play the hurdy-gurdy" He took the little girl by the hand And both went on ahead Through street and house and garden And struck the people dead Where after they were wed And they bore a great many chi-i-i-ldren But... the first one learned the piano The second the violin The third learned the bagpipes The fourth the clarinet And the fifth the flageolet And they all began to talk talk talk talk And... then... nobody played any music And it all began again it all began again it all began again it all began again...