Tip-Toe Thru the Tulips with Me
From "The Gold Diggers of Broadway"
Performer: Eddie Peabody
Al Dubin (lyrics) Joe Burke (music)
Perfect, 1929
MP3 1,320K
Okay...side B partly explains both why I felt I had to buy this record, and
why I never listened to it. It's the stigma of professional repulsive creep
Tiny Tim,
for whom this was a signature tune.I also instinctively bristle at old-time banjo playing, which was the territory of comics and clowns. It's hard enough for a banjoist to hold on to some few ragged shreds of dignity, without our ancient brethren throwing it away with both hands.
That was a little unfair of me. Eddie Peabody did thump on the comic thing pretty hard, with loud blazers, baggy pants and bow tie. He was a vaudevillian and night-club act, and played the props and patter as hard as the instruments.
But he also had some pretty impressive musicianship. He's credited with the invention of the four-string plectrum banjo, and certainly played it with skill. That, and a couple dozen other stringed instruments, including others of his own design.
This recording is fun after all, in a manic, enthusiastic, banjo-y kind of way. Despite the fusty shade of Tiny Tim. Listen for the hat-tip to Rhapsody in Blue at the beginning.
Tiptoe to the window,
By the window that is where IŽll be
Come tiptoe through the tulips with me!
Tiptoe from your pillow,
To the shadow of a willow tree
And tiptoe through the tulips with me!
Knee deep in flowers we'll stray,
WeŽll keep those showers away.
And if I kiss you in the garden,
In the moonlight, will you pardon me?
Come tiptoe through the tulips with me!