"Last Train to Mercerville"

My two favorite songwriters of the golden age are Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael. Here's a song I wrote about Mercer. The trick to it is that in nearly every line, starting after the opening (or what they call "the verse") there's at least one Johnny Mercer song title. In other words, the entire lyric is made up of Mercer song titles..

(click on the image below to buy this book)

 (click here to listen to a recording)

"The Last Train to Mercerville"

Sometimes in quiet contemplation

when all the world seems tired dull and stale,

bored to tears with my computer’s cursor,

I yearn for an amusifying verser

whose clever lyrics always cure my alienation.

So, if you share my fond preoccupation

with good old tunes that tend to tell a tale,

with words just terse enough, not any terser,

as written by a certain Johnny Mercer,

perhaps you’d care to meet me at the railroad station…

     where Mister Bob White is Trav'lin’ Light 
     and dustin’ his shoes to The Blues in the Night.
     Down on Skylark Lane, past Early Autumn Hill,
     he’s boardin’ the last train to Mercerville

     where Laura rides too, on that train passin’ through.
     On each train I caught, John, I Thought About You.
     You were just Too Marvelous for Words, at least until
     your words charmed all the birds in Mercerville.

      On the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe,

      they know Something’s Gotta Give.

      But the Mercer Line runs great and tonight I’ve got a date

      to Accentuate the Positive.

And isn’t it fine, Come Rain or Come Shine,
to ride that old friend to the end of the line.
Ah, The Summer Wind, The Autumn Leaves that spill
across the track that takes you back to Mercerville.

(musical interlude)

     Watch her glide alongside the Moon River,
     and Dream when you’re feelin’ blue,
     where Fools Rush In, lovin’ the spin that they’re in 
     and the Angels Sing a Tin-Pan Alley hymn for you.

Well, that’s how it goes, and, John, these phrases I chose
fit Hoagy and Henry and Harold and those
of the Old Music Masters who gave us a thrill
with plaintive strains aboard those trains to Mercerville.

I was born old fashioned, I’m Old Fashioned 
I love the moonlight, still. 
I’m just insane about that train   
(a-hoo-wee-de-hoo-wee) to Mercerville.

Hop on board. Take a trip on a train, hop on board.

Day In, Day Out, That Old Black Magic has me in its spell

and Anyplace I Hang My Hat Is Home, Goody-Goody.

The Days of Wine and Roses, Tangerine. 

Jeepers Creepers,Time to Hit the Road to Dreamland,

and In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening, I Remember You...

Music & Lyric © 2006 by Lee Charles Kelley & Johnny Mercer

West Sixty Ninth Street Music (ASCAP)

Extra verses:

     Life’s a Beautiful Ball and, John, your words tell it all.
     Like that flat in Manhattan and my Satin Doll.
     But when miss Tangerine handed me her bill
     I Casey Jonesed my Lazybones to Mercerville.

(musical interlude)

     
     And may I say Hooray for Hollywood 
     and the picture shows they showed?
     And sad although it may be, I’ll have One for My Baby 
     and one more for the road.