LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,109)
  • Text Authors (19,482)
  • 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

by Beresford Rode

The Songs of Today
 (Sung text for setting by T. Bennett)
 Matches base text
Language: English 
The songs of today, though they're all very short
Yet are often exceedingly sweet
While the lyrics so deeply with passions are fraught
There are some I should blush to repeat.

"O heart of me see at thy feet how I lie!"
(He could lie standing up just as well!)
Tis the lily-white soul I shall love till I die!"
So he says... But you never can tell!

There are love songs of Africa, India, Japan,
And of ev'ry conceivable place,
They are all of them built to a family plan,
And the fashion is growing apace.

If the poems were sent to the Censor of Plays
Ere the songs were permitted to sell,
He would curl up his innocent brow in amaze,
And he's say... But you never can tell!

There are numerous songs with such titles as this:
`You're my Bumble, I am your Bee.'
Or, `The Cowslip's Caress', or `The Grasshopper's Kiss',
Or `The Puddle that Yearns for the Sea'.

They have all very tender pathetic refrains,
And the publisher's profits they swell,
But the people who sing them have they any brains?
Well perhaps... But you never can tell!

Composition:

    Set to music by Thomas Case Sterndale Bennett (1882 - 1944), "The Songs of Today", published 1911

Text Authorship:

  • by Beresford Rode

Go to the general single-text view


Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

This text was added to the website: 2005-01-13
Line count: 24
Word count: 193

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