I want
to wake up in the morning
where the morning glories grow
Where the sun comes a -leapin'
into where I'm sleepin'
And the songbirds say hello
I want to ramble in the wildwoods
where the rippling waters flow
And go drifting back
to childhood
where the morning glories grow
All the way back
to my childhood
where the morning glories
grow
Well, on that long ago matinee,
so many years ago,
the audience was very cordial,
encouraged me to continue on
in a musical career.
So I plodded along through the late 20s,
the 30s, an d the 40s,
sort of a rake's progress,
picking up a little work here and there,
you know, with the vaudeville
radio pictures
and old market openings
or bus stops,
anything, any place I could get
until finally in the mid -50s or late 50s
I had reached what I rather
euphemistically like
to call the zenith of my career.
But I plodded along until one day
I was coming in from the Houston airport
in a taxi cab into the city
and the driver of the cab
was a an ample chap
and he kept looking around
over his shoulder at me kind
of sizing me up
finally he said say mister said
anybody ever tell you you look
like Bing Crosby
I said oh no no no there's no
chance of that I
I'm a much better look
ing man than Bing Crosby
so he didn't say any more
for oh a minute or two
and finally says well let me tell
said something, mister,
you wouldn't mind looking
like Bing Crosby
if you had his money.
But then, really the shock
that really put me back in the action again,
seriously, I was coming out of NBC
about a year ago out of the stage door,
the artist entrance there.
There's generally a little group
of people around.
And one fella come up
and started looking at me
very close.
He looked me all over and he said, and say,
didn't you used to be Bing Crosby?
You know, that's a little strong.
So I decided to give up
the shooting
and the fishing and the travel and the golf
and how lucky I was to be
able to get an engagement here
in what is really the Mecca of all
strolling players,
the Palladium.
Here I am and how happy I am,
I can't even tell you.
I really guess that's enough time
spent poking about
among the embers
of the dear dead past.
We'd better get to work
and sing some songs.
And I have a new song here,
and it's a song,
the lyrics of which seem to me
to be particularly appropriate.
Peter?