A PRETTY GIRL IS LIKE A MELODY
(Irving Berlin, 1919)

VERSE 1
I have an ear for music,
And I have an eye for a maid;
I link a pretty girlie
With each pretty tune that's played.
They go together like sunny weather
Goes with the month of May;
I've studied girls and music,
So I'm qualified to say:

CHORUS:
A pretty girl is like a melody
That haunts you night and day;
Just like the strain of a haunting refrain,
She'll start upon a marathon
And run around your brain.
You can't escape, she's in your memory
By morning, night and noon;
She will leave you and then
Come back again;
A pretty girl is just like a pretty tune.

VERSE 2
Most every year we're haunted
By some little popular tune;
Then someone writes another -
The old one's forgotten soon.
A pretty maiden with beauty laden
Is like that kind of song:
Just when you think you love her,
Another one comes along.
CHORUS

Notes: In 1934 on the Good Gulf program, Berlin said, "One of my best songs was written because the late Flo Ziegfield needed a song to show off five of his most beautiful showgirls....one day Mr. Ziegfield called me into his office and showed me designs for costumes to be worn by five of his famous showgirls...Then he said, 'All I need is an idea to introduce them.' Well, I finally hit on the notion of having each girl represent one of the old melody classics, such as Mendelssohn's "Spring Song," Schubert's "Serenade," etc. The last thing that was thought of was an original song to introduce the old melodies. But I finally wrote one."
The song became the theme song of the Ziegfield Follies. Irving Berlin later acknowledged (1954) that the song became a melody for stripteasers to disrobe to.

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Source: The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin, edited by Robert Kimball and Linda Emmet, Knopf, 2001. This book says that that "the lyrics Irving Berlin wrote for the 'classical' interludes do not survive" - but it appears that Q has posted them above.

-Joe Offer-