Harburg Lyric of the Day: "It Was Good Enough For Grandma"

The next Yip Harburg lyric I'll post is one of his comedy songs, "It Was Good Enough For Grandma" from the 1944 Broadway show Bloomer Girl. Produced to cash in on the popularity of "historical" musicals in the wake of Oklahoma!, the show was set during the Civil War and concerned Evelina (Celeste Holm), a rich young woman who becomes involved in the women's suffrage and anti-slavery movements. To Harold Arlen's mock-march tune, sort of a cross between "Yankee Doodle" and "Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead," Evelina (Celeste Holm) leads the female chorus in a song about women wanting more than the previous generation. Harburg was never one to preach at us, and as usual, he gets his "message" across with humour, distorted words and crazy rhymes -- I particularly like "gov'ment" and "love meant."


When Grandma was a lady,
She sewed and cleaned and cooked,
She scrubbed her pots
And raised her tots,
The dear old gal was hooked.
She stitched her little stitches,
Her life was applesauce.
The thing that wore the britches
Was boss.
She had no voice in gov'ment
And bondage was her state.
She only knew what love meant
From eight to half-past eight.
And that's a hell of a fate!

It was good enough for Grandma,
That good old gal,
With her frills and her feathers and fuss.
It was good enough for Grandma,
Good enough for Grandma,
But it ain't good enough for us!

When Grandma was a lassie,
That tyrant known as man
Thought woman's place
Was just the space
Around a frying pan.
He made the world his oyster,
Now it ain't worth a cuss.
This oyster, he can't foist 'er
On us!
Our brains against his muscle,
Our tea against his rum.
A look behind the bustle
For the shape of things to come.
Join up with fife and drum!

It was good enough for Grandma,
That good old gal,
With her frills and her feathers and fuss.
It was good enough for Grandma,
Good enough for Grandma,
But it ain't good enough for us!

We won the revolution
In seventeen-seventy-six.
Who says it's nix
For us to mix
Our sex with politics?
We've bigger seas to swim in
And bigger holes to slice.
Oh, sisters, are we women
Or mice?
Look twice before you step on
The fair sex of the earth.
Beware our secret weapon:
We could stop giving birth.
Take that for what it's worth!

It was good enough for Grandma,
That good old gal,
With her frills and her feathers and fuss.
It was good enough for Grandma,
Good enough for Grandma,
But it ain't good enough for us!
No, it ain't good enough for us!