Lydia the Tattooed Lady


"Lydia, the Tattooed Lady" is a 1939 song written by Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen. It first appeared in the Marx Brothers movie At the Circus and became one of Groucho Marx's signature tunes.
The complex lyrics by Harburg - with clever rhymes such as "Lydia/encyclopedia" and "Amazon/pajamas on" - were inspired by W. S. Gilbert. Harburg made many contemporary references to topical personalities such as Grover Whalen, who opened the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Among the items, persons, and scenes tattooed on Lydia's body are the Battle of Waterloo, The Wreck of the Hesperus, the red, white and blue ; the cities of Kankakee and "Paree", Washington Crossing the Delaware, President Andrew Jackson, Niagara, Alcatraz, Buffalo Bill, Captain Spaulding exploring the Amazon, Lady Godiva, Grover Whalen, the Trylon, Treasure Island, Nijinsky, Social Security Number and a fleet of ships. Alternative lyrics suggest that Lydia's buttocks have tattoos of a map and a caricature of Hitler: "When she stands, the world grows littler. When she sits, she sits on Hitler."
In 1950, Groucho famously "stopped" trading at the New York Stock Exchange by commandeering a microphone and singing the song before telling jokes for 15 minutes, during which time traders suspended their work to watch him perform.

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