Lyr Req: It (Harbach/Hammerstein/Romberg)

Subject: Lyr Req: The 'IT' song from the 1920s
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 12:55 PM

My mum had an ancient 78 (I think from the late 1920s) with a song called "It" on one side! This was connected to the racy novelist of the period called Elinor Glyn and also no doubt to the It Girl, Clara Bow. I can only remember a bit of the lyric which is quite funny really! Anybody got a better memory than me, or any knowledge of who wrote it? Whoever it was, they were quite witty.

There was a time when Sex
Seemed something quite complex
Mr Freud then employed
Words we never had heard of....

He kept us on a string
? We kept on wondering....
Now at last...????????.......
Solved by Elinor Glyn
She defined...????????.....
The indefinable thing

She called it IT
Quite simply IT
(and that's where memory fades).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 'IT' song from the 1920s
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 02:18 PM

IT. Words: Harbach and Hammerstein, music: Sigmund Romberg, 1926 from The Desert Song.

Mississippi State U. has a copy, but that 1926 date means it's not available to view online.

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 'IT' song from the 1920s
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 02:23 PM

Wikipedia says lyrics for It were by Edward Smith, not Harbach and Hammerstein who did the rest. Haven't checked this.

Mick

Subject: Lyr Add: IT (Harbach/Hammerstein/Romberg)
From: Rain Dog
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 03:19 PM

Not sure how accurate these lyrics are.
Found them here

Excuse the line breaks (or lack of them)


There was a time when sex seemed something quite complex.
Mister Freud then employed words we never had heard of.
He kept us on the string.
We kept on wondering.
But the seed of sin now at last has been found by Eleanor Glynn.
In one word she defines the indefinable thing.
She calls it "it".
Just simply "it".
THat is the word they're using now for that improper fraction of vague attraction that gets the action somehow.
You've either got (or you have not) that certain thing that make's 'em cling.
SO if the boys don't seem to fall for you,
there's just no hope at all for you.
Give up and quit.
YOu'll never hit.
If you have not got "It".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 'IT' song from the 1920s
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 06:05 AM

Thank you so much folks!! Trust Mudcatters to come up with the goods even when the Interweb doesn't.

Just shows how memory becomes faulty - of COURSE the number comes from "The Desert Song" - it was on the record label.

I'm old enough to remember when you couldn't avoid "Whaaan Aloooone" etc on the BBC Light Programme, particularly on Friday nights. Also reminds me of the middle aged lady trio in Yates's Wine Lodge in Nottingham.

All that sheikh stuff turning our mums and grandmas to jelly - how very strange.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It (Harbach/Hammerstein/Romberg)
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 06 Jul 12 - 01:56 AM

That stuff was popular in the 1920s...