You can take all the tea in China

Put it in a big brown bag for me

Sail right around the seven oceans

Drop it straight into the deep blue sea

She's as sweet as tupelo honey

She's an angel of the first degree

She's as sweet as tupelo honey

Just like honey from the bee

You can't stop us on the road to freedom

You can't keep us 'cause our eyes can see

Men with insight, men in granite

Knights in armor bent on chivalry

She's as sweet as tupelo honey

She's an angel of the first degree

She's as sweet as tupelo honey

Just like honey from the bee



You can't stop us on the road to freedom

You can't stop us 'cause our eyes can see

Men with insight, men in granite

Knights in armor intent on chivalry

She's as sweet as tupelo honey

She's an angel of the first degree

She's as sweet as tupelo honey

Just like honey from the bee



You know she's alright

You know she's alright with me

She's alright, she's alright (she's an angel)



You can take all the tea in China

Put it in a big brown bag for me

Sail it right around the seven oceans

Drop it smack dab in the middle of the deep blue sea

Because she's as sweet as tupelo honey

She's an angel of the first degree

She's as sweet as tupelo honey

Just like honey from the bee



She's as sweet as tupelo honey

She's an angel of the first degree

She's as sweet as tupelo honey

Just like the honey, baby, from the bee

She's my baby, you know she's alright.....



A posting to the Van mailing list May/96 notes the existence of a lost verse to this song, here transcribed from a performance on the Van Morrison in Ireland concert video:





There's a rose pressed inside a bible

That she reads on the balcony

She's sweet in slumber and I've got her number

For the beginning of the century.



Van list member Art Siegel comments in Nov/97 that I don't think the rose in the bible is a true 'lost verse', but rather one that Van added to his live performances years after the original. There is, though, a true 'lost verse' which is in the original sheet music:



I'll tell a tale of old Manhattan

Adirondack bus to go

Standing waiting on my number

And my number's gonna show.



The Dusty Springfield cover version on The Van Morrison Songbook CD has a variant of this:



I heard a tale of old Manhattan

I've never been there but I want to go

Standing waiting on my number

And my number's gonna show