Dance Little Baby (1928) - Noël Coward

Though you’re only seventeen

Far too much of life you’ve seen

Syncopated child

Maybe if you only knew

Where your path is leading to

You’d become less wild

But I know it’s vain

Trying to explain

While there’s this insane

Music in your brain

Dance, dance, dance little lady

Youth is fleeting to the rhythm

Beating in your mind

Dance, dance, dance little lady

So obsessed with second best

No rest you’ll ever find

Time and tide and trouble

Never, never wait

Let the cauldron bubble

Justify your fate

Dance, dance, dance little lady

Dance, dance, dance little lady

Leave tomorrow behind

When the saxaphone

Gives a wicked moan

Charleston, hey, hey

Rhythms fall and rise

Start dancing to the tune

The bands crooning—

For soon the night will be gone

Start swaying like a reed

Without heeding

The speed

That hurries you on

Syncopate your nerves

Till your body curves

Drooping, stooping

Laughter some day dies

And when the lights are starting to gutter

Dawn—through the shutter—

Shows you’re living in a world of lies

Dance, dance, dance little lady

Youth is fleeting to the rhythm

Beating in your mind

Dance, dance, dance little lady

So obsessed with second best

No rest you’ll ever find

Time and tide and trouble

Never, never wait

Let the cauldron bubble

Justify your fate

Dance, dance, dance little lady

Dance, dance, dance little lady

Leave tomorrow behind