I've been to gay Paree, where the women at half past three
Came strolling along where the boys belong
Hollering ta-ra-boom-de-ay;
I've danced the oyster can, down on the American plan;
I shed great tears when I got three years
For stealing a couple of Texas steers;
I've been in Kansas C.; I've been out on a spree;
I've been in jail, been out on bail
And I've been on a ship that would not sail;
I've been to Ohio, likewise to Buffalo,
Indianapolis, Cincinnati,
Louisville and Camay-o;
I've been up in a balloon; I've been in a saloon;
I've been dead broke and I've been in soak
And I drank and I drank till I thought I would croak,
And I've been an awful dude, and sometimes rather rude;
I've had hard luck and I've been dead stuck
And I've been the driver of a two-horse truck;
I've been in many a scrap; I've had a real hard slap;
Mine eyes have been draped in mourning and crepe;
For a year and a half I've been stuck on the shakes;
I've slept in bum hotels, paid prices that were swell,
Slept in bum beds and dying bled
And chasing the bedbugs round my head;
Been bunko once or twice, with cards and shaking dice;
Bet a house and a lot and a fourteen-spot;
I pulled my leg plumb full of knots;
I've often played baseball; I've been umpire and all;
Been hit with clubs and sticks and bricks
And foundered about in a terrible fix;
Been to Chicago too, that place where the wind blows through;
I went to a fair where they clipped my hair
And charged me a dollar an inch for air;
I've been down on the track, at a racehorse took a crack;
Bet a ten or two on a horse I knew
But the horse dropped dead and he never came to;
I've lived on pork and beans; I've slept in rooms thirteen;
Been out at night and I've seen the sights
And I've hit the pike by the candlelight;
I've been to Salt Lake too; 'twas the only place I knew
Where the girls are beauties and they does their duties
And they chews the gum called the Tuttsi-Frutties;
I've been to Indi-ann; I've stepped on a banann;
I slipped, I fell, I hurt like hell,
But the words I used I must not tell;
I also rode a wheel, and I run an automobile;
I had a prizefight, and I made a gold strike.
And since that night I've never been right;
I fought for the blue and the gray; I've slept on a bale of hay;
I drove a mule, taught public school,
But I never could find that golden rule;
I drank red lemonade that's made with a posthole spade;
I've shot snipes by electric lights
And I marched with the Salvation Army at night;
I've been in politics, too; oh, how the money flew;
In Tammany Hall I had a close call,
But I never could learn to sing "After the Ball";
I've been where I didn't belong; you've heard this lovely song;
Now these are all facts, but I made some cracks
And I'll get it in the neck where the chicken got the ax.
