Music by Cy Coleman

Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green

From the 1978 musical "On The Twentieth Century"

Transcribed by Randy Goldberg, NYMC '97



Saddle up the horse without delay

Ship ahoy, we sail at break of day

Ours not to question

Ours not to reason

Ours to obey!



Let down the drawbridge

While you keep the motor racing

Maybe we'll have to swim the river

Working for Jaffee, though continually crazy,

Also destroys the heart and liver



What's new today

We're gonna sneak away

To a shower of rotten eggs

With our tails between our legs

On the Twentieth Century, the Twentieth Century

In Drawing Room A!

Hey! Hey! Hey!



We point with the deepest pride

To the grandest ride

On the New York Central Railroad

The aristocrat of locomotive trains

New York in sixteen hours

Anything can happen in those sixteen hours

On that mighty ride

That mighty miracle of engineering trains

Ride that mighty miracle of engineering trains



On the Twentieth Century

On the Twentieth Century

On the Twentieth Century

On the Twentieth Century

On the luxury liner of locomotive trains

On the luxury liner of locomotive trains



Our hearts will be motion reels

When this prince of wheels

Starts to make its daily journey

Either Chi-N.Y.

Or else N.Y. to Chi

New York in sixteen hours

Anything can happen in those sixteen hours

As the flight all across the night

America the beautiful was high

America the beautiful was high



On the Twentieth Century

On the Twentieth Century

On the Twentieth Century

On the Twentieth Century

On the luxury liner between N.Y. and Chi



Life and love and luck

May be changed

Hope renewed (renewed)

And fate rearranged



On the Twentieth Century

On the Twentieth Century

On the Twentieth Century

On the Twentieth Century

On the luxury liner between N.Y. and Chi



Life and love and luck

May be changed

Hope renewed

And fate rearranged



On the Twentieth Century

On the Twentieth Century

On the Twentieth Century

On the Twentieth Century

On the luxury liner between N.Y. and Chi