OF LATE I'VE BEEN DRIVEN NEAR CRAZY



Of late I've been driven near crazy

All on account of my wife.

She ran away with a Chinee

And left me to mourn all my life.

I wrote her a million of letters

And asked her my faults to forget.

No matter how many I wrote her,

These are the answers I get.

Wait 'til the gang on the corner

Refuses to take a big bowl,

Wait 'til the bank robbers in Canada

Bring back all the money they stole,

When Jay Gould and the great Knights of Labor

And all the trade unions agree,

And the people don't back-bite their neighbors

Then, my darling, I'II come back to thee.



She stole all my clothes and my money.

She left me as poor as a mouse.

Her actions were awfully funny.

She stole all I had in the house.

But I wrote her and said l'd forgive her

If she would but come back again.

This morning I received a large letter

And this is what it did contain.

Wait 'til the actors and married men

Agree with all business men.

Wait 'til we find one who's hen-pecked

That's in love with his mother-in-law.

When the K.C.'s and Eagles and Masons

Unite in a grand jubilee.

When the Chinese rule this nation

Then, my darling, I'll come back to thee.



note: A sort-of update of Waly, Waly

From Folk Songs out of Wisconsin, Peters

Collected from Lester Coffee, Harvard, IL, 1946 who learned it

ca. 1870-1880