Drum on your drums, batter on your banjoes,

Sob on the long cool winding saxophones.

Go to it, O jazzmen.

Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy tin pans,

Let your trombones ooze,

And go hushahusha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.

Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome tree-tops,

Moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible,

Cry like a racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop,

Bang-bang! you jazzmen,

Bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns, tin cans—

Make two people fight on the top of a stairway

And scratch each other’s eyes in a clinch tumbling down the stairs.

Can the rough stuff …

Now a Mississippi steamboat pushes up the night river

With a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo …

And the green lanterns calling to the high soft stars …

A red moon rides on the humps of the low river hills …

Go to it, O jazzmen.