IF YOU CAN'T TELL THE WORLD

(Enoch LIght) 1927


As sung by Annette Hanshaw 1927


Also sung by:

Prince Piotti (1927)



People who gossip are people who lie

So try to keep out of their way

Many a girl saw her happiness die

'Cause someone had too much to say.


If you can't tell the world

She's a good little girl

Then just say nothing at all.


Who cares what

She once used to be

As long as she's sorry

She needs sympathy.


So don't give away

What you know of her life

Someday she may make

A wonderful wife.


If you can't tell the world

She's a good little girl

Then just say nothing at all.


Homes have been broken

And hearts filled with pain

By stories that shouldn't be told.


Dreams have been dreamed

And then shattered in vain

Before a new scandal grows old.


If you can't tell the world

She's a good little girl

Then just say nothing at all.


Who cares what

She once used to be

As long as she's sorry

She needs sympathy.


So don't give away

What you know of her life

Someday she may make

A wonderful wife.


If you can't tell the world

She's a good little girl

Then just say nothing at all.


Notes:


Catherine) Annette Hanshaw, an American, was a blues and jazz singer

from the 1920s and early 1930s and was  purportedly one of the first

female jazz singers of that era.


She was known as 'The Personality Girl' or later as the 'The Flapper

Girl' by her followers and fit the 1920s period perfectly with her

flapper style and sweet innocent-sounding voice. She often ended her

songs with the cute tag "That's All".


See  MY BLACKBIRDS ARE BLUEBIRDS NOW and  
LOVABLE & SWEET 


Some consider the later Hanshaw, a 'torch singer' along with the likes

of Ruth Etting, Mildred Bailey, Jane Froman and Bebe Daniels. Strangely,

she thought her abilities 'wanting' by her own standards and retired

early to married life, after only 15 years in the business.


Hanshaw also recorded under the names 'Gay Ellis' or 'Dot Dare' or

'Patsy Young'.


(Transcribed by David Story May 2014)