Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Band Is Back In Dixieland
From: GUEST,MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 25 Aug 13 - 01:55 AM

Here are the lyrics to a song published in 1919 as a response to ARB.

ALEXANDER'S BAND IS BACK IN DIXIELAND
(Jack Yellen/Albert Gumble. Published by Jerome H. Remick & Co, Detroit, Michigan and New York, 1919)
Sheet music from In Harmony: Sheet Music From Indiana> (Downloadable as a PDF).

1. Where's that music comin' from
Listen to that rum-tum-tum
That's what I call music sweet,
Puts the tickle in your feet
I know from the metre there's a certain leader
Comin' down the street

CHORUS

Here comes Ragtime Alexander
Dixie's famous band commander
No more worry no more blues
Ev'rybody run along and get your dancin' shoes
When it comes to syncopation
That's the best band in creation
Oh boy what a time
'Cross the Mason-Dixon Line
Alexander's band is back in Dixieland.

PATTER CHORUS
Hear the clarinetter
Listen to the bugle
Lordy can't he blow
Yes bo!

Listen to the fiddler
I wish I was the fiddler and he was my bow
Who is that a moanin'
That's trombone
Saxophone
Some moan
That's the boy that's gonna make me leave my home
Oh boy what a time
'Cross the Mason-Dixon Line
Alexander's band is back in Dixieland.

2. Now we'll have some harmonies
Floatin' on the evenin' breeze
When the steamboat loaders
And the cotton toters
Start their jubilees.
I'll be down to ev'ry one
Just as quick as I can run
With my lovin' baby
Let me tell you maybe
I won't have some fun

(CHORUS)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
From: GUEST,MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 24 Aug 13 - 08:48 PM

There's some parodies/responses to "Alexander" which I might post the lyrics to when I find them.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
From: GUEST,MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 23 Aug 13 - 08:05 PM

@leeneia: I think that's what this forum is (partly) for.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 23 Aug 13 - 02:41 AM

Oh sure. No problem.

I'm always trying to get people to pick up an instrument or sing and make actual music. I'm strange that way.

I found a wonderful version of AR'B on YouTube by a band called the Dixieland Crackerjacks. They turned out to be Dutch or Flemish. They're great.

I think the drummer is an Asian female, but I can't be sure. There's a man in the back row playing the biggest saxophone I've ever seen.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
From: GUEST,MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 23 Aug 13 - 01:40 AM

And an addition: Thanks for the explanation and sorry if that last post came off badly.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
From: GUEST,MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 22 Aug 13 - 11:45 PM

@leeneia: The lyrics were typed mostly from memory because I've sung this song so many times.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 Aug 13 - 10:37 AM

Thanks for the link, Crowhugger. I admire their coordination.

(If I were in there, I'd be the one going left when everybody else is going right.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 Aug 13 - 10:33 AM

Hi again, Morwen. When I said "you can play it," I actually meant that anybody reading this thread can play it. I assumed, since you are interested in the song, that you know its melody.

Q: I agree. It should say 'ragged-meter' man. It's the meter that ragged, not the man.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
From: Crowhugger
Date: 21 Aug 13 - 10:25 PM

Another take on the classic Alexander's Ragtime Band.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
From: GUEST,MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 21 Aug 13 - 09:26 PM

@leeneia: I found that a ewhile ago, actually :)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Aug 13 - 01:35 PM

"ragged meter man"
I took that as a reference to ragtime meters.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 21 Aug 13 - 10:56 AM

Hello, Morwen. Just a couple of days ago I was thinking that we hadn't had a post from you for a while.

Thanks for posting the lyrics. Here's the URL for a page with a MIDI you can play (I had to use the second word 'Melody') or download if you have MIDI software.

http://ingeb.org/songs/alexande.html

It's a great tune.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
From: GUEST,MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 21 Aug 13 - 07:17 AM

@Joe: George M. Cohan wrote "Give My Regards To Broadway", didn't he?
Funny thing about GMRTB- I didn't know about the original verses until very recently. The version I learned from listening to the CD my brother had to listen to for our primary school choir (even though I wasn't in the choir) had the chorus and these two verses:

Lift up the curtain, strike up the band,
Turn on the spotlight, give us a hand.
We're off for Broadway, we won't stop
Until we reach the very top.

I've waited too long -- not anymore,
I'm walkin' in through the backstage door.
Broadway is where I belong
Singing a Broadway song.

I have no idea who wrote those verses- probably not George M. Cohan!

When I introduced "Alexander's Ragtime Band" to my friend Alex and asked him what he thought on Skype, he said he wasn't that into ragtime. So I had to tell him it wasn't really ragtime. I also told another friend that ARB wasn't ragtime.

(AFAIK, it's not a rag but it does have a syncopated melody).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Aug 13 - 04:49 AM

This, of course, is the song that made people say that Irving Berlin had a "pickaninny in his closet" writing his songs. Seems to me, he must have had George M. Cohan in his closet to write this one.

-Joe-

Subject: Lyr Add: ALEXANDER'S RAGTIME BAND (Irving Berlin)
From: GUEST,MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 Aug 13 - 10:08 PM

This song has been mentioned in several threads but the lyrics haven't been added. So here they are.

ALEXANDER'S RAGTIME BAND
(Irving Berlin)

1. Oh ma honey, oh ma honey,
Better hurry and let's meander,
Ain't you goin', ain't you goin',
To the leader man, ragged meter man?
Oh ma honey, oh ma honey,
Let me take you to Alexander's
Grandstand, brass band,
Ain't you comin' along?

(CHORUS)
Come on and hear, come on and hear,
Alexander's ragtime band.
Come on and hear, come on and hear,
It's the best band in the land!
They can play a bugle call like you never heard before,
So natural that you want to go to war.
That's just the bestest band what am, my honey lamb.

Come on along, come on along,
Let me take you by the hand,
Up to the man, up to the man,
Who's the leader of the band.

And if you care to hear the 'Swanee River'
Played in ragtime,
Come on and hear, come on and hear,
Alexander's ragtime band.

2. Oh ma honey, oh ma honey,
There's a fiddle with notes that screeches,
Like a chicken, like a chicken,
And the clarinet,
Is a colored pet,
Come and listen, come and listen,
To a classical band what's peaches,
Come now, somehow,
Better hurry along!

(Chorus)

Published by Ted Snyder & Co, 1911, New York City.

Sheet music is at " the Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection.

It can also be found at " Duke University's Historical American Sheet Music Digital Collection.