LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,102)
  • Text Authors (19,442)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

Babes in Toyland

Operetta by Victor Herbert (1859 - 1924)

She was a country girl
 (Sung text for setting by V. Herbert)
 Matches base text

Language: English 
When Miss Evaline Cook at the city took a look,
There on her a very pleasant lady smiled;
And she said to her, "My dear, will you hold this infant here
Till I go and buy a biscuit for this child?"
But Eva answered "Nix!
Though such amateurish tricks
Often catch the country bumpkin and beguile 'em,
Your child I will not mind
So run along and find
Somebody else to act as an asylum!"

    Oh, she was a country girl,
    Her switch was so full of hay,
    But when she had to cross the street,
    She always knew the way!
    Oh, she was a country girl
    But well did she know her book;
    If in search of a jay,
    You had best stay away
    From sweet Evaline McCook!

When Miss Evaline Cook at the city took a look,
A pocketbook upon the street she spied;
The people passed it by for 'twas April fool, that's why
To take that pocketbook nobody tried.
"Ah, an ancient trick like that,"
They remarked, "is quite too flat;
That purse is filled with nothing else but hay."
Then up from the cold cold ground
Eva plucked the purse and found
The sum of twenty thousand dollars in it.

    Oh, she was a country girl,
    Her switch was so full of hay,
    But when she had to cross the street,
    She always knew the way!
    Oh, she was a country girl
    But well did she know her book;
    If in search of a jay,
    You had best stay away
    From sweet Evaline McCook!

Text Authorship:

  • by Glen MacDonough (1870 - 1924) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

Set by Victor Herbert (1859 - 1924) [ voice and piano ]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Don't be a villain
 (Sung text for setting by V. Herbert)
 Matches base text

Language: English 
We are a pair of villains,
We're the worst you ever saw.
We're trying hard to break in jail,
We've broken ev'ry law.
The jails are so exclusive,
Now it really is a sin,
You have to bribe the keepers,
Or they will not let you in.
If you have no money,
They will throw you out.
We killed a doll a year ago,
We stabbed it with a gun.
They wouldn't lock us up,
Because they didn't see it done.
We're pirates, and we're burglars
And we kill folks now and then,
But otherwise, we are a pair
Of strictly moral men,
And that is why we're free
To roam about.

    Don't be a villain, boys,
    For crime is bound to fail,
    'Twill cost you all your earnings
    To stay a week in jail.
    Don't be a villain, boys,
    Unless it's in a play,
    Oh, do not be a villain for,
    You'll find it does not pay.

We are so bad that on the whole,
We couldn't tell you half.
We love to see a woman cry,
Because it makes us laugh.
Last summer we were sleighing
Up around the Toyland flats.
We slayed a flat house janitor,
And eighty-seven cats,
If we had a larger sleigh
We'd sleigh his wife.
When we were boys, two bad men came,
And killed us while we slept.
They took our lives, and went away,
But after them we crept.
We caught them and we killed them both,
They made an awful fuss.
The judge said that it served them right,
For they had just killed us,
But we were angry when he gave them life.

    Don't be a villain, boys,
    But live a life of peace.
    There are not many villains,
    Excepting our police.
    But do not join the force,
    The pay is very small.
    If you can't own an auto,
    Don't be criminal at all.

When we were very little boys,
Our stealing first began.
One day while at a baseball game,
We stole a base and ran.
We went into a fur store,
And we saw a muff and stole.
We robbed the village bakery,
And got the baker's roll.
And since then the baker hasn't had a bun.
We tried to corner copper,
But we found it wouldn't work.
The copper was a roundsman,
And his name was Michael Burke.
We cornered him behind a house,
He clubbed us both so hard,
He thought we'd die by inches,
But we fainted by the yard.
Now frenzied finance is a thing we shun.

    Don't be a villain, boys
    For you'll get but little thanks.
    You'll have to be a lady,
    If you go robbing banks.
    Don't try to rob the banks,
    It's no work for a man.
    Unless you are a robber
    On the Cassie Chadwick plan.

Text Authorship:

  • by Vincent Bryan (1878 - 1937) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

Set by Victor Herbert (1859 - 1924), 1904-05 [ voice and piano ]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 727
Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris