GIRLS
(According to a 14 year old Boy)
by Dorothy Turner & Ernest Longstaffe (1922)
Performed by Dorothy Varick

Ugh! Don’t ask me what I think about girls –
I’m fed up with the whole blinkin’ crowd.
Sisters and cousins and aunts and such things
Ought never have been allowed.
I’ve got some of each an’ I give you my word
There’s not one in the whole blinkin’ lot
That can talk to a chap for a minute on end
Without spoutin’ some silly rot.
The niff of face powder all over the house,
Is enough to turn anyone sick.
But when they expect me to kiss ‘em Goodnight
I guess it’s a trifle too thick.
An’ look at the rum sort of clothes that they wear –
All neenong and gores, and that stuff
Called crepe-de-thingummy, that falls into bits
If you handle ‘em just a bit rough.
I’m hustled and ordered from pillar to post
I can’t call my soul my own,
It’s ‘Freddie do this’ or the other old thing –
Wish they’d jolly well leave me alone,
But if ever I’m wanting a button sewn on
Or the school badge put on me straw hat,
They’ve gone to a cooking or ambulance class
Or some new fangled piffle like that.
They’ll yell like the deuce at a beetle or mouse
And to see a dead cat makes ‘em faint,
But it licks me completely the nerve that they’ve got
To make a chap feel what he ain’t
Why they’ll talk to a fellow that’s won the V.C.
As if he’d done nothing at all,
And a chap who can run up his century, sure,
Must answer to their beck and call.
And crumbs – as for honour, they haven’t a spark
For if ever I do nick a fag,
Or get in the pantry to sample the tuck,
It’s odds on that someone’ll lag.
The conceit of them too – why they reckon sure thing,
Thet’ll be marrying heroes and earls
But it ain’t much good grousing about ‘em I s’pose
They couldn’t help being born girls.
There’s only one blessing as far as I know
For a chap who’s got sisters like me,
Whenever some Johnny comes foolin’ around
And wants to spoon on the Q.T.
He’ll tip me a bob to keep out of the way,
Ugh, as if I should bother my head
To look through a key hole, I’m only too glad
To be off to the pictures instead.
I must keep my eyes open, if they spot me here now
They’re sure to start making a song
‘Bout being untidy, or washing me neck
So I think p’r’aps I’ll hop it – so long!