IF I GIVE UP THE SAXOPHONE, WILL YOU COME BACK TO ME?
Sammy Fain / Irving Kahal / David Raksin

as rec by Eddie Cantor w The Victor Studio Orch 
cond by Leonard Joy


Nights are long and lonely since we've been apart;
You'd come back if you but knew how I miss you, sweetheart!
You said I wasn't playing fair and so you had to go;
There's a question I must ask you, dear, your answer I must know!

If I give up the saxophone,
Will you come back to me?
If I give up the toodle-oodle-oo,
Will we bill and coo
Like we used to do?

I know the fault was all my own,
You warned me time and time!
"Lips that touch a saxophone", 
You said, "Shall ne'er touch mine!",
But if I give up the saxophone,
Will you come back to me?

My father plays the piccolo,
My mother plays the drum,
My brother plays the horses,
Just because he is a bum-tiddley-um-bum, bum-bum-bum,
Bum-tiddley-um-tum-tum!

My uncle plays harmonica,
And plays it way off key!
My grandmama plays tennis,
'Cause she lives in Tennesse-see-see-see,
See-see-see!

Now if I give up the saxophone,
Will you come back to me?
If I give up the toodle-oodle-ay,
Anything you say
If you come back to stay!

And when I go to bed at night,
How all alone I feel,
I found out that a saxophone
Has got no sax appeal!
So if I give up the saxophone,
Will you come back to me?





(Transcribed by Peter Akers - June 2011)