SHE KNOWS HER ONIONS
Words and music by Jack Yellen; Milton Ager; Lew Pollack.
New York: Ager, Yellen & Bornstein, ©1926.
As sung by Billy Jones & Ernest Hare (The Happiness Boys)

SPOKEN PATTER: —Say, Bill, do you remember Sally Brown that we went to school with?
—Yes, Ernie, I do.
—Well, wasn't she a dumb Dora in school, especially in arithmetic?
—Well, she might have been dumb at school, Ernie, but you should see her subtract now.
—Subtract? What do you mean subtract?
—Well, she takes ten from one, and twenty from another one,—just a girl what knows her onions, Ernie.
—Ha-ha-ha! Hey, Bill, you know—

VERSE 1: On Broadway the other day I met someone you know.
—Peggy Joyce? Is she in town?
—Don't be a fool; it was Sally Brown.
—Oh, you mean the village queen? —Yes, she's in a Ziegfeld show.
—That so? —And she's made quite a name.
—Well, she's just a chorus dame.

CHORUS 1: —Yes, and she rides in a limousine.
—Ah, she knows her onions!
—Well, tell me please just what you mean.
—Ah, she knows her onions!
—She's just a farmer's daughter, brought up in Ioway.
—Her father never taught her the things she knows today.
—You say she knows her onions. I don't quite get your talk.
—I'll bet she has no bunions. —Why? —She don't get out and walk.
—Ah!
—She's got mink and sable fur,
—And all she gets is forty per.
—She's a girl who knows her onions!

VERSE 2: —Well, by gum, that gal was dumb back in the village school.
—She has changed somehow.
That gal's well educated now.
—Well, the teacher said her brain was dead. —That teacher was a fool!
She's smart, I'm telling you.
—Well, I'll give her credit, too,

CHORUS 2: 'Cause she's got diamonds in her ear.
—She knows her groceries!
—And you ought to see her lavaliere.
—Ah-ha-ha, she knows her vegetables!
—This simple country maiden from fields of new-mown hay—
—And you should her p'radin' along the Gay White Way!
—She stays out after 'leven, right in the city's whirl,
—'Cause she believes that heaven protects the woikin' goil!
—Ah!
—She's got lots of stocks and bonds.
—Gentlemen prefer the blondes.
—She's a girl who knows her onions!

CHORUS 3: She's got money in the bank.
She knows her onions!
No one but herself to thank.
She knows her onions!
She hates finale-hoppers. She don't like college boys.
She likes the sugar-poppers who buy expensive toys.
She hardly ever dances with a collegiate sheik.
She don't take any chances; she likes 'em old and weak.
Ah!
—Never goes on auto dates
—Without takin' roller skates.
She's a girl who knows her onions!

Ah!

[Finale hopper: a person who enters a theater, music-hall, stadium, etc., after ticket-takers have left; a deadbeat.

[Sugar-popper: sugar-papa; sugar-daddy.]