Hush little baby, don't say a word
Papa's gonna take you to West 43rd
And the intellectual temple, Town Hall,
On a street that serves a lot of alcohol
And the home of the New Yorker magazine
And the Algonquin Round Table literary scene
But if literary history is not an inspiration,
Papa will take you to Grand Central Station
And if the Oyster Bar is out of Tobasco
Papa will take you to the Belasco
And if you're not impressed by Mark Rylance
And there's too much talking, not enough violence,
And if you feel the urge to laugh
Papa will take you to see Falstaff
And if you tire of the opera speedily
Papa will take you down to Eatally
And if the pasta's too wet and the wine's too dry
I'll take you to the 92nd Street Y
And if the poetry reading's a bore
And the metaphors you've heard before
And the poets' muse is a much too solemn muse
Papa's gonna take you to St. Bartholomew's
And if Papa thinks that the sermon is dull he
Will take you over to Alice Tully
And if you don't like the concerto by Corelli
Papa will take you to Katz's Deli
And if the pickles are low on dill
Papa will take you to Murray Hill
And if there's too much honk honk and too much zoom
We'll head west and visit Grant's Tomb,
And if his tomb fills you with gloom
I'll take you to the Met and the Impressionists Room
And if those paintings don't ring your chimes
Papa's gonna take you to the New York Times
And if they won't buy your story and give you a byline
Papa's gonna take you down to the Highline
And if the boardwalk feels like you're on a luge
Papa's going to take you to Poisson Rouge
And if the music is ordinary
We'll go to Woodlawn Cemetery
Where you will find on the same hill
Duke Ellington and Herman Melville,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the same earth
As George Cohan and F.W. Woolworth,
And if dead people aren't what you had in mind,
We'll head for Ninth Avenue and see what we find.
A New York Street where the sidewalks are lined
With joints where one can be wined and dined
And there Papa's credit card will be declined.
He'll be deVisaed and unMastered,
All because of you, you beautiful child.
Then we'll pack our bags and head for home
Out on the range where the buffalo roam,
We'll live on Cheese Whiz and Creamettes
So we can pay our credit card debts.
Drive a school bus, shovel the walks,
Clean the johns, and darn the socks,
And eventually when the money's made,
And the pigs are sold and the bills are paid,
We'll put down the shovel and the pitchfork,
And get dressed up and come back to New York