Please folks,
may I have your attention please?
Attention please!
I can deal with the trouble, friends,
with a wave of my hand
This very hand
Please observe me if you will
I'm Professor Harold Hill
And I'm here to organize a River
City's boys' band
Oh think, my friends, how could any pool table ever
hope to compete with a gold trombone?
Rah rah, rah da da dat da,
rah, rah
Remember, my friends, what
a handful of trumpet players
Did to the famous,
fabled walls of Jericho
Old billiard parlor walls come-
a tumbling down!
Well, a band'll do it, my
friends
Oh yes, I said a boys' band, do
ya hear me?
I said River City's gotta have a boys' band, and
I mean she needs it today!
While Professor Harold
Hill's on hand
River City's gonna have
her boys' band
And sure as the Lord made
little green apples
An d that band's gonna be
in uniform
Johnny, Willy, Teddy, Fred
And you'll see the glitter of
crashing cymbals
And you'll hear the thunder
of rolling drums
And the shimmer of trumpets, tum ta da!
And you'll feel something akin
to the electric thrill I once enjoyed
When Gilmore, Liberace, Pat Conway,
the great Creator
W.C. Handy, and John Philip Sousa
All came to town on the very
same historic day
Seventy six trombones
There were copper bottom tympani
in horse platoons
Thundering, thundering,
all along the way
Double bell
euphoniums and big bassoons
Each bas soon having his big fat say
There were fifty mounted cannon
in the battery
Thundering, thundering,
louder than before
Clarinets of eve'ry size and
trumpeters who'd improvise
A full octave higher than the score