Thursday, January 3, 2019

Mad About the Boy: the lost lyrics





SOCIETY WOMAN:

I met him at a party
Just a couple of years ago
He was rather over-hearty and ridiculous


But as I'd seen him on the screen he cast a certain spell
I basked in his attraction
For a couple of hours or so

His manners were a fraction too meticulous

If he was real or not I couldn't tell
But like a silly fool I fell






Mad about the boy
I know it's stupid to be mad about the boy
I'm so ashamed of it
But must admit

The sleepless nights I've had 
About the boy
On the silver screen
He melts my foolish heart in every single scene
Although I'm quite aware
That here and there
Are traces of the cad 
About the boy




Lord knows I'm not a fool-girl
I really shouldn't care
Lord knows I'm not a school-girl
In the flurry of her first affair

Will it ever cloy
This odd diversity of misery and joy
I'm feeling quite insane and young again
And all because I'm mad about the boy







SCHOOL GIRL:

Home work, home work
Every night there's homework
While Elsie practices the gas goes pop
I wish, I wish she'd stop

Oh dear, oh dear
Here it's always, 'No dear
You can't go out again, you must stay home
You'd waste your money on that common Picturedrome
Don't shirk—stay here and do your work.'

Yearning, yearning
How my heart is burning
I'll see him Saturday in Strong Man's Pain
And then on Monday and on Friday week again






To me, he is the sole man
Who can kiss as well as Coleman
I could faint whenever there's a close-up of his lips

Though John Barrymore is larger
When my hero's on his charger
Even Douglass Fairbanks Junior hasn't smaller hips
If only he could know
That I adore him so

Mad about the boy
It's simply scrumptous to be mad about the boy
I know that quite sincerely
Houseman really
Wrote The Shropshire Lad about the boy






In my English prose
I've done a tracing of his forehead and his nose
And there is, honour bright
A certain slight
Effect of Galahad about the boy

I've talked to Rosie Hooper
She feels the same as me
She says that Gary Cooper
Doesn't thrill her to the same degree
In Can Love Destroy?

He meets with Garbo in a suit of corduroy
He gives a little frown
And knocks her down
Oh dear, oh dear, I'm mad about the boy






COCKNEY:

Every Wednesday afternoon
I get a little time off from three to eleven
Then I go to the picture house 
and taste a little of my particular heaven

He appears
In a little while
Through a mist of tears
I can see him smiling
Above me
Every picture I see him in
Every lovers' caress
Makes my wonderful dreams begin







Makes me long to confess
That if he ever looked at me
And thought perhaps I was worth the trouble to
Love me
I'd give in and I wouldn't care
However far from the path of virtue he'd
Shove me!

Just supposing our love was brief
If he treated me rough
I'd be happy beyond belief
Once would be enough






Mad about the boy
I know I'm potty but I'm mad about the boy!
He sets me 'eart on fire
With love's desire
In fact I've got it bad about the boy!
When I do the rooms
I see his face in all the brushes and the brooms!

Last week I strained me back
And got the sack
And had a row with dad about the boy
I'm finished with Navarro, (He thrills me to the marrow)
I'm tired of Richard Dix, (I sit through all his tricks!)
I'm pierced by Cupid's arrow
Every Wed-nes-day, from four to six!






'Ow I should enjoy
To let 'im treat me like a plaything or a toy
I'd give my all to 'im
And crawl to 'im
So 'elp me God, I'm mad about the boy





TART:

It seems a little silly
For a girl my age and weight
To walk down Piccadilly
In a haze of love

It ought to take a good deal more to get a bad girl down
I should have been exempt, for
My particular kind of fate
Has taught me such contempt for
Every phase of love

And now I've been and spent my last half-crown
To weep about a painted clown












































Mad about the boy
It's pretty funny but I'm mad about the boy
He has a gay appeal
That makes me feel
There may be something sad about the boy

Walking down the street
His eyes look out at me from people that I meet
I can't believe it's true
But when I'm blue
In some strange way I'm glad about the boy





I'm hardly sentimental
Love isn't so sublime
I have to pay my rental
And I can't afford to waste much time

If I could employ
A little magic that would finally destroy
This dream that pains me
And enchains me


But I can't because I'm mad about the boy






Words and music by Noel Coward