Hi, Lily - This Google Search will lead you to lots of information. I was trying to find sheet music for the song, and found it here (click) at the Levy Sheet Music Collection.

Gee, this one's even got a Wikipedia entry!

Good Morning, Mr. Zip-Zip-Zip!
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


"Good Morning, Mr. Zip-Zip-Zip" is a ragtime song published as sheet music in 1918 by Leo Feist Inc. of New York City. It was one of the most popular tunes with United States soldiers during the World War I era.

According to the sheet music, it was "written around a Fort Niagara fragment" by Robert Lloyd, "Army song leader." In 1918, both Victor Records (VI18510) and Columbia Records (A-2530) issued a recording of the song by Arthur Fields and the Peerless Quartet. It was sung (in part) in John Cassavetes' film HUSBANDS and was parodied by the Washington DC group Bill Holland and Rent's Due as "Good Mornin' Mr. Snip Snip Snip." The chorus of the Tom Waits song "Barbershop" contains the lines "Good morning, Mister snip snip snip/With your hair cut just as short as mine."


The reference to "Camels" and "Fatimas" (fa-tee'-mas) are references to popular cigarettes of the time. (Decades later, Fatimas was later a sponsor of the radio version of Dragnet.)

Mp3: http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/zipzipzip.htm

MIDI here (click)

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The lyrics in the Wikipedia entry are almost the same and what's in the sheet music, but here are the exact lyrics:

Good Morning, Mr. Zip-Zip-Zip!
Written around a Fort Niagara fragment by Robert Lloyd, Army Song Leader

We come from ev'ry quarter,
From North, South, East and West,
To clear the way to freedom
For the land we love the best.
We've left our occupations
and homes, so far and dear,
But when the going's rather rough,
We raise this song in cheer:

[chorus: repeat twice]
Good morning, Mister Zip-Zip-Zip,
With your hair cut just as short as mine,
Good morning, Mister Zip-Zip-Zip,
You're surely looking fine!
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,
If the Camels don't get you,
The Fatimas must,
Good morning, Mister Zip-Zip-Zip,
With your hair cut just as short as,
your hair cut just as short as,
your hair cut just as short as mine.


You see them on the highway,
You meet them down the pike,
In olive drab and khaki
Are soldiers on the hike;
And as the column passes,
The word goes down the line,
Good morning, Mister Zip-Zip-Zip,
You're surely looking fine.

[repeat chorus twice]


Copyright 1918, by Leo Feist, Inc.

from original sheet music printed in A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody (and other Favorite Song Hits, 1918-1919), Dover Publications