Mad About the Boy - Noël Coward

I met him at a party

Just a couple of years ago

He was rather over-hearty and ridiculous

But as I’d seen him on the screen he cast a certain spell

I basked in his attraction

For a couple of hours or so

His manners were a fraction too meticulous

If he was real or not I couldn’t tell

But like a silly fool I fell

Mad about the boy

I know it’s stupid to be mad about the boy

I’m so ashamed of it

But must admit

The sleepless nights I’ve had About the boy

On the silver screen

He melts my foolish heart in every single scene

Although I’m quite aware

That here and there

Are traces of the cad About the boy

Lord knows I’m not a fool-girl

I really shouldn’t care

Lord knows I’m not a school-girl

In the flurry of her first affair

Will it ever cloy

This odd diversity of misery and joy

I’m feeling quite insane and young again

And all because I’m mad about the boy

SCHOOL GIRL:

Home work, home work

Every night there’s homework

While Elsie practices the gas goes pop

I wish, I wish she’d stop

Oh dear, oh dear

Here it’s always, 'No dear

You can’t go out again, you must stay home

You’d waste your money on that common Picturedrome

Don’t shirk—stay here and do your work.'

Yearning, yearning

How my heart is burning

I’ll see him Saturday in Strong Man’s Pain

And then on Monday and on Friday week again

To me, he is the sole man

Who can kiss as well as Coleman

I could faint whenever there’s a close-up of his lips

Though John Barrymore is larger

When my hero’s on his charger

Even Douglass Fairbanks Junior hasn’t smaller hips

If only he could know

That I adore him so

Mad about the boy

It’s simply scrumptous to be mad about the boy

I know that quite sincerely

Houseman really

Wrote The Shropshire Lad about the boy

In my English prose

I’ve done a tracing of his forehead and his nose

And there is, honour bright

A certain slight

Effect of Galahad about the boy

I’ve talked to Rosie Hooper

She feels the same as me

She says that Gary Cooper

Doesn’t thrill her to the same degree

In Can Love Destroy?

He meets with Garbo in a suit of corduroy

He gives a little frown

And knocks her down

Oh dear, of dear, I’m mad about the boy

COCKNEY:

Every Wednesday afternoon

I get a little time off from three to eleven

Then I go to the picture house and taste a little of my particular heaven

He appears

In a little while

Through a mist of tears

I can see him smiling

Above me

Every picture I see him in

Every lovers' caress

Makes my wonderful dreams begin

Makes me long to confess

That if he ever looked at me

And thought perhaps I was worth the trouble to

Love me

I’d give in and I wouldn’t care

However far from the path of virtue he’d

Shove me!

Just supposing our love was brief

If he treated me rough

I’d be happy beyond belief

Once would be enough

Mad about the boy

I know I’m potty but I’m mad about the boy!

He sets me 'eart on fire

With love’s desire

In fact I’ve got it bad about the boy!

When I do the rooms

I see his face in all the brushes and the brooms!

Last week I strained me back

And got the sack

And had a row with dad about the boy

I’m finished with Navarro, (He thrills me to the marrow)

I’m tired of Richard Dix, (I sit through all his tricks!)

I’m pierced by Cupid’s arrow

Every Wed-nes-day, from four to six!

'Ow I should enjoy

To let 'im treat me like a plaything or a toy

I’d give my all to 'im

And crawl to 'im

So 'elp me God, I’m mad about the boy

TART:

It seems a little silly

For a girl my age and weight

To walk down Piccadilly

In a haze of love

It ought to take a good deal more to get a bad girl down

I should have been exempt, for

My particular kind of fate

Has taught me such contempt for

Every phase of love

And now I’ve been and spent my last half-crown

To weep about a painted clown

Mad about the boy

It’s pretty funny but I’m mad about the boy

He has a gay appeal

That makes me feel

There may be something sad about the boy

Walking down the street

His eyes look out at me from people that I meet

I can’t believe it’s true

But when I’m blue

In some strange way I’m glad about the boy

I’m hardly sentimental

Love isn’t so sublime

I have to pay my rental

And I can’t afford to waste much time

If I could employ

A little magic that would finally destroy

This dream that pains me

And enchains me

But I can’t because I’m mad about the boy