WE NEVER MENTION AUNT CLARA



*1

She used to sing hymns in the old village choir

She taught at the Sunday-school class,

At playing the organ she never would tire

Those dear days are over, alas.

*2

In church at the organ she'd practice each day

While the minister pumped up and down.

His wife caught him pumping the organ one day

And that's why aunt Clara left town.

*3

With presents he tempted and lured her to sin

Her innocent virtue to smirch,

But her honor was strong and she never gave in

Till he gave her the deed to the church.



Cho.

We never mention aunt Clara;

Her picture is turned to the wall.

Though she lives on the French Riviera

Mother says she is dead to us all.

*4

They said that she'd toil by night and by day

She'd have to scrub floors for her bread,

But inside of a week she discovered a way

To earn her board lying in bed.

*5

They told her the wages of sinners was death.

To this my aunt Clara just said

That she'd just as soon die with champagne on her

breath,

And pink satin sheets on her bed.

*6

They said no one cared if she'd ever come back

When she left us her fortune to seek

But the boys in the firehouse painted it black

And the ball team wore mourning that week.

*7

The said that no man would make her his bride

They prophesied children of shame

But she's married three earls and a baron besides

And she hasn't a child to her name.

*8

They said that Hellfire would punish her sin

She'd burn for her carryings-on

But just at the moment she's toasting her skin

On the beaches of Dover and Cannes.

*9

They said that to garments of sackcloth she'd sink

With ashes to cover her head.

But just at the moment it's ermine and mink

And a diamond tiara instead.

*10

They say that she's sunk in the muck and the mud

But the papers last week showed a snap

Of aunt Clara, at Nice, with a prince of the blood

And a bishop asleep on her lap.

*11

The best things in life always go to the pure

The Sunday school lessons all teach

But I wonder when I see the rotogravure

Of her eighty room shack at the beach.

*12

They say that she's sunken, they say that she fell

From the narrow and virtuous path,

But her French formal gardens are sunken as well

And so is her pink marble bath.

*13

My poor mother's life has been pious and meek

She drives in a second-hand Ford.

Aunt Clara received, for her birthday, last week

A Rolls-Royce, a Stutz and a Cord.

*14

My mother does all of her housework alone

She has to scrub clothes for her board

It strikes me that virtue's not only its own,

But also its only reward.

final cho.

So we never mention aunt Clara,

But I think that when I grow up tall

I shall live on the French Riviera

And let mother turn me to the wall.



parody of Picture Turned Toward the Wall

@parody @humor

filename[ AUNTCLAR

RG

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