IT'S A SIMPLE LITTLE SYSTEM
From the Broadway Musical "Bells Are Ringing" (1956)
(Jule Styne / Betty Comden / Adolph Green)

Eddie Lawrence & Chorus (Broadway Production) - 1956
Eddie Foy Jr. & Chorus (Film Soundtrack) - 1960
David Garrison, Julio Agustin & Joanne Baum (Broadway Revival) - 2001


It's a simple little system any child can understand
The composers names, we list them with the racetracks of the land
With this simple little system we'll be close by fortune's door
And to think that no one ever, ever thought of it before

Gentlemen, Gentlemen, look at your charts

What is Beethoven? (Belmont Park)
Where's Puccini? (Pimlico)
Who is Humperdinck? (Hollywood)
What is Beethoven? (Beethoven is Belmont Park)
Where's Puccini? (Puccini is Pimlico)
Who is Humperdinck? (Humperdinck is Hollywood)

Ah, that is correct, turn the page

What's Tchaikovsky? (Churchill Downs)
Who's Mussorgsky? (Monmouth Park)
What's Rachmaninov? (Rockingham)
What's Tchaikovsky? (Tchaikovsky is Churchill Downs)
Who's Mussorgsky? (Mussorgsky is Monmouth Park)
What's Rachmaninov? (Rachmaninov is Rockingham)

That is correct, turn the page

It's a simple little system where it pays you to begin
A simple little system where the Lord is listening in
We will take those record orders in a very cultured tone
While we're really booking horses over at Susanswerphone

We'll be rich, we'll be rich, we'll be rich!

Debussy is Del Mar
Humperdinck is Hollywood
César Franck is Fairgrounds
Sibelius is Sportsmans Park
Berlioz is Bainbridge
Hindemith is Hawthorn
Offenbach is Omaha
Ev'rybody, all together now
(Who is Beethoven? Belmont Park, it's a simple little system)
(Who's Puccini? Pimlico, simple little system)
(Who's Tchaikovsky? Churchill Downs)
(And Shostakovich is Saratoga)
What is Handel? (Hialeah, Hialeah)
Who is Handel? (Hialeah, Hialeah)
Oh, what a system!


(Transcribed by Mel Priddle - February 2006)