Lyrics: "That Man is Doing His Worst to Make Good" By Johnny Burke

One of the most underrated and under-appreciated of the great pop lyricists was Johnny Burke, who wrote the lyrics for "Pennies From Heaven," "Swinging On a Star," "Misty" and "Here's That Rainy Day." Working mostly with composer Jimmy Van Heusen, he wrote lyrics with mostly simple vocabulary and standard subjects, but with imaginative and even poetic imagery, always coming up with charming and offbeat ways to talk about familiar subjects. After he split with Burke, Van Heusen joined up with a superficially similar but inferior lyricist, Sammy Cahn, and wound up producing a lot of slick but soulless and kind of dated songs, whereas his best collaborations with Burke are really timeless and beautiful.

And while he usually kept the rhymes as simple as the language, when he wanted to rhyme up a storm in a comedy song, he could do it, as in this comedy song that was cut from the musical Carnival in Flanders but recorded by Debbie Gravitte on one of Bruce Kimmel's albums of obscure show tunes. It's a fairly familiar type of comedy song, a list of reasons for innocent young women to beware of men who are about to get fresh -- but Burke's playful rhyming and imagery keeps the song fresh in a different way.

"That Man is Doing His Worst to Make Good"

Refrain 1

If he tells you he loves your girlish laughter,
Since he's met you, he's daft and getting dafter,
And it's only your friendship that he's after,
Jump for a rafter!
That man is doing his worst to make good.
If he tells you that people should be franker,
That it's silly to sit around and hanker,
If his next move is what they call a flanker,
Haul up your anchor!
That man is doing his worst to make good.
If he's in a sad dilemma
About his cousin Emma
And needs a comforting hand,
Later on he needs a shoulder
Or something even bolder,
You know what he's got planned.
If he tells you he leads a hard severe life,
Even harder than any mountaineer life,
And his wife won't do anything to cheer life,
Then run for dear life!
That man's not preaching on brotherhood,
That man is doing his worst to make good.

Refrain 2

If he looks like the type that never forces,
Not a mention of sex in his discourses,
Then you find out he's been through eight divorces,
Don't spare the horses!
That man is doing his worst to make good.
If he says you've become a lovely habit
And you've his heart to treasure or to stab it,
But won't say it in front of any Abbot,
Run like a rabbit!
That man is doing his worst to make good.
If you meet the little boy type,
The kid-without-a-toy type,
That looks so down at the socks,
If he's sweet and kind of crazy,
So wistful and so hazy,
He's crazy like a fox.
If he calls you a truly thoroughbred girl
And so clever and such a vastly read girl,
If he says you know how to use your head, girl,
Shake out the lead, girl!
That man is doing his worst to make --
I mean, he's really rehearsed to make --
That man is doing his worst to make good.