You can find an mp3 file of this song on this page (or click to play). Note: a version by Ella Fitzgerald can also be found on that page, but it's less complete than this one.

This is not the kind of novelty song Frank Crumit is usually remembered for, but this song does contain some clever rhymes.


MOUNTAIN GREENERY
Words, Lorenz Hart. Music, Richard Rodgers.
From The Garrick Gaieties of 1926.
As recorded by Frank Crumit.

On the first of May,
It is moving day.
Spring is here, so blow your job,
Throw your job away.
Now's the time to trust
To your wanderlust.
In the city's dust you wait.
Must you wait?
Just you wait!

In a mountain greenery,
Where God paints the scenery,
Just two crazy people together.
While you love your lover, let
Blue skies be your coverlet.
When it rains, we'll laugh at the weather.
And if you're good,
I'll search for wood
So you can cook
While I stand look—ing.
Beans could get no keener re-
Ception in a beanery.
Bless our mountain greenery home!

In a mountain greenery,
Where God paints the scenery,
Just two crazy people together.
How we love sequestering
Where no pests are pestering.
No dear ma to hold us in tether
Mosquitoes here
Won't bite you, dear.
I'll let them sting
Me on the fing—er.
We could find no cleaner re-
Treat from life's machinery
Than our mountain greenery home.

When the world was young, old Father Adam with sin would grapple,
So we're entitled to just one apple.
I mean to make applesauce.
Underneath the bough, we'll learn a lesson from Mister Omar.*
Beneath the eyes of no pa and no ma[r],
Old lady nature is boss.

And if you're good,
I'll search for wood
So you can cook
While I stand look—ing.
Beans could get no keener re-
Ception in a beanery.
Bless our mountain greenery home!


[* Omar Khayyam, author of this much-quoted quatrain, in Fitzgerald's translation:

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!