Crazy Rhythm, From Now On We're Through!

I say we're through, but I'm wrong. This is one of those songs that gets stuck in my head and just stays there. At least it's a song I truly love, unlike a lot of the earworms I pick up. It seems to me to be a quintessential late-20's song (not that I was there to observe); peppy, fun, eminently danceable. Barely-out-of-his-teens composer Roger Wolfe Kahn, along with Joseph Meyer, penned a number that sounds youthful and fresh nearly 80 years later. Whenever I hear it, I am whistling or singing it for the rest of the day. I also love the slangy lyrics: "I'm too high-hat, you're too low-down;" "It's not the right life, but think of the pay!"

Two sound files - The first has a vocal; they don't sing the verses, but the melody is there. The second is all instrumental.

Crazy Rhythm by Harry Reser's Syncopaters.

Crazy Rhythm by Fred Elizalde and His Anglo American Band

And don't get me started on Gershwin's Fascinating Rhythm, which gives me the same trouble. (I'll save that for another post!)

Crazy Rhythm

Lyrics by Irving Caesar,
Music by Joseph Meyer and Roger Wolfe Kahn
1928

VERSE 1: I feel like the Emperor Nero when Rome was a very hot town.
Father Knickerbocker, forgive me, I play while your city burns down.
Through all its night life I fiddle away,
It's not the right life, but think of the pay!
Some day I will bid it goodbye, I'll put my fiddle away and I'll say:

CHORUS: Crazy rhythm, here's the doorway, I'll go my way, you'll go your way;
Crazy rhythm, from now on we're through.
Here is where we have a showdown: I'm too high-hat, you're too low-down;
Crazy rhythm, here's goodbye to you!

They say that when a high-brow meets a low-brow walkin' along Broadway,
Soon the high-brow he has no brow - Ain't it a shame? And you're to blame!
What's the use of prohibition? You produce the same condition;
Crazy rhythm, you’ve gone crazy, too!

VERSE 2: Ev'ry Greek, each Turk and each Latin, the Russians and Prussians as well,
When they seek the lure of Manhattan, are sure to come under your spell.
Their native folksongs they soon throw away,
Those Harlem smoke songs, they soon learn to play.
Can't you fall for Carnegie Hall? Oh! Danny, call it a day and we'll stay.

CHORUS: Crazy rhythm, here's the doorway, I'll go my way, you'll go your way;
Crazy rhythm, from now on we're through!
Here is where we have a showdown, I'm too high-hat, you're too low-down;
Crazy rhythm, here's goodbye to you!

They say that when a high-brow meets a low-brow walkin' along Broadway,
Soon the high-brow he has no brow. Ain't it a shame? And you're to blame.
What's the use of prohibition? You produce the same condition;
Crazy rhythm, from now on, we're through!