by Joseph Martin Cunningham
My neighbor East’s a banker,
My neighbor West’s a Jew,
And I’m a big — ah — well —
What are you?
No matter what I am now,
Or what I used to be,
I’ll tell you how we get along —
Just we three.
We first bring out some bottles
Of our own home brew —
Then next in order we have
A drink or two.
And if a bottle goes dry
We find a wetter one —
Of course, we only do this
Just for fun.
We never drink before eight
And often stop at noon,
Unless upon reflection
That seems too soon.
We eat each others’ pudding
We kiss each others’ wives —
In fact, we really do have
The time of our lives.
But if the party grows dull,
Or the brew seems pretty flat,
We each take turns at spanking
One anothers’ brat.
And if the brats won’t yell much,
We try some other games;
We telephone the minister
And call him dirty names,
Or grease the stairs with bacon grease
And all come sliding down;
The banker’s stairs for this game
Are the best in town;
We climb up in my appletree
To pick some fresh green peas
To feed to neighbor West’s wife’s
Half-trained fleas;
We tear the banker’s car down
To get some gasoline
To run the electric motor to
My washing machine.
In fact we like prohibition —
We are glad it’s here to stay,
We never had such fun before
It came our way.
We never would have made home brew,
Or sipped wood alcohol,
If law had not closed up saloons
For once and all.
The banker still would be aloof,
The Jew be ostracised,
And I be as I used to be —
By them despised.
Indeed the law has done good —
It has made us democratic,
Despite the fact that you may think
It quite fanatic.
