FIDDLE AND GITTAR BAND
From the film "My Friend Irma Goes West" (1950)
(Jay Livingston / Ray Evans)

Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis - 1950


DEAN:
Sul mare luccica
L'astro d'argento
Placida e' l'onda
Prospero e' il vento
This is a pretty song, but I don't like it
Don't want a city song, wanta sing western
That is the best'un music in all the World

Oh, we're gonna have a lowdown hoedown tonight
Step up stranger, try your hand
Have a high deal hoedown tonight
To the diddle of a fiddle in a gittar band

Gonna get a little gal and a-sashay tonight
Play new music, that's our band
Who cares if their a-playin' it right
Long as you can hear the fiddle and the gittar band

(Soundtrack Dialogue - girls and Dean singing in background)

You can bet a silver dollar I'm a-goin' tonight
Finest wing-a-ding in the land
Soon be leadin' a toe-in tonight
To the diddle of a fiddle and a gittar band

Swing your partner down the middle
Grab your Shirley with a diddle
And the twiddle of the fiddle and a gittar band

JERRY (Spoken): Get ready for the square dance!

DEAN (Spoken): Make way for a laugh-eared, ring-tailed, smoke-eaten',
dad-blasted, iron-livered swab!

JERRY:
Oh, I'm gonna ride a mean coyote tonight
Spokes and cactus, that's my brand
Watch my pistol blazin' tonight
In the middle of the fiddle and gittar band

Nin-nin-nin-nin-nin-nin-nin-nin-nin-nin
Nin-nin-nin-nin-nin-nin

Oh, I'm gonna shoot a few dumb sherriffs tonight
Chase that posse of my land
Don't you rile me, stranger tonight
Or I'll whip out the fiddle and the gittar band

DEAN (Spoken): Now, get Seymour, I gotta call a square dance

JERRY (Spoken): Get yourself. I'm callin' the square dance, Partner.
Now get, go on, get!

Form your squares and circle 'round
Gonna have the best square dance in town
Pass the biscuits, pass the grits
Pass the fiddles before they itch
Ladies pretty on the eight-fourteen
Birds or bees there say how you been? Ha-ha
Allamade left and watch her twist
Grand right left right after this
Got a dog named Ginger, how she yap
Does she bite or ginger snap? Ha-ha-ha
Promenade, away we go
Finish up with a docile-doe

(Soundtrack Dialogue)

DEAN:
You can bet a silver dollar I'm a-goin' tonight
Finest wing-ding in the land
See me here in a toe-in tonight
To the diddle of a fiddle and a guitar band

Swing your partner down the middle
Drop your Shirley with a diddle
And the twiddle of the fiddle and a guitar band


(Transcribed from the "My Friend Irma Goes West"
film soundtrack by Mel Priddle - February 2005)