Lyrics by Arthur Wimperis
Music by Herman Finck
This song is parodied in “I Don’t Want to Be a Soldier”
1. The army and the navy need attention,
The outlook isn’t healthy you’ll admit,
But I’ve got a perfect dream of a new recruiting scheme,
Which I really think is absoluetly it.
If only other girls would do as I do
I believe that we could manage it alone,
For I turn all suitors from me but the sailor and the Tommy,
I’ve an army and a navy of my own.
On Sunday I walk out with a Soldier,
On Monday I’m taken by a Tar,
On Tuesday I’m out with a baby Boy Scout,
On Wednesday a Hussar,
On Thursday I gang oot wi’ a Scottie,
On Friday, the Captain of the crew,
But on Saturday I’m willing if you’ll only take the shilling,
To make a man of any one of you.
2. I teach the tenderfoot to face the powder,
That adds an added lustre to my skin,
And I show the raw recruit how to give a chaste salute,
So when I’m presenting arms he’s falling in.
It makes you almost proud to be a woman
When you make a strapping soldier of a kid,
And he says “You put me through it and I didn’t want to do it,
But you went and made me love you, so I did.”
On Sunday I walk out with a Bo’sun,
On Monday a Rifleman in green,
On Tuesday I choose a ‘sub’ in the ‘Blues,’
On Wednesday a Marine;
On Thursday, a Terrier from Tooting,
On Friday, a Midshipman or two,
But on Saturday I’m willing if you’ll only take the shilling,
To make a man of any one of you.