ALICE IS AT IT AGAIN
Written for the London Musical "Pacific 1860" (1946)
(Noël Coward)

Noël Coward - 1955



Now I should like to sing you a song about a simple
country girl who always kept her eye on the future.....

In a dear little village, remote and obscure
A beautiful maiden resided
As to whether or not her intentions were pure
Opinions were sharply divided

She loved to lie out 'neath the darkening sky
And allow the night breeze to entrance her
She whispered her dreams to the birds flying by
But seldom received any answer

Over the field and along the lane
Gentle Alice would love to stray
When it came to the end of the day
She would wander away unheeding

Dreaming her innocent dreams, she strode
Quite unaffected by heat or cold
Frequently freckled or soaked with rain
Alice was out in the lane

Whom she met there, every day there
Was a question answered by none
But she'd get there and she'd stay there
Till whatever she did was undoubtedly done

Over the field and along the lane
Both her parents would call in vain
Sadly, sorrowfully, they'd complain
Alice is at it again

Though that dear little village surrounded by trees
Had neither a school nor a college
Gentle Alice acquired from the birds and the bees
Some exceedingly practical knowledge

The curious secrets that nature revealed
She refused to allow to upset her
But she thought, when observing the beasts of the field
That things might have been organised better

Over the field and along the lane
Gentle Alice would make up and take up her stand
The road was not exactly arterial, but it led to a town nearby
Where quite a lot of masculine material caught her roving eye

She was ready to hitch-hike
Cadillac or motorbike, she wasn't proud or choosy
All she was aiming to be
Was a pinked-up, minked-up, fly-by-night floozy

When old Rajahs gave her pearls
As large as nuts on a chestnut tree
All she'd say was "Fiddle-dee-dee,
The wages of sin'll be the death of me"

Over the field and along the lane
Gentle Alice's parents would wait hand-in-hand
Her dear old white-headed Mother, wistfully sipping Champagne, said
"We've spoiled our child, spared the rod, open up the caviar
And say 'Thank God', we've got no cause to complain
Alice is at it again!"


(Transcribed by Mel Priddle - June 2006)


TRIVIA: This song was written for Coward's 1946 musical "Pacific
1860". But Mary Martin, making her London debut in the show, refused
to sing it, complaining that the lyrics were too suggestive.

The original 1946 ending of the song (Coward changed it to the above
version for his later caberet performances) was:

..................have been organised better

Over the field and along the lane
Gentle Alice, one summer's day
Met a man who was driving a dray
And he whisked her away to London

Then, after many a year had passed
Alice returned to her home at last
Wearing some pearls and a velvet train
Bearing a case of Champagne

They received her fairly coldly
But when the wine had lifted the blight,
They believed her when she boldly said
The Salvation Army had shown her the light

When she had left by the evening train
Both her parents in grief and pain
Murmured brokenly, "More Champagne,
Alice is at it again!"



(Transcribed by Mel Priddle - June 2006)