by Irving Berlin
Published 1918: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., Strand Theatre Bldg.,
Broadway at 47th St., New York
MIDI file courtesy Benjamin
Tubb.
Verse: 1
In uniform we represent,
The navy of our President;
Yo-ho! Yo-ho!
We try to be as Dewey was,
The fearless man we knew he was;
Yo-ho! Yo-ho!
With watchful eye we take our post,
To guard our Uncle Sammy’s coast;
Yo-ho! Yo-ho!
We’ll fill our guns with navy beans,
And shoot the German submarines;
Yo-ho! Yo-ho!
CHORUS
[sung twice after each verse]
Over the sea boys,
We’re assigned;
With the land we love ever in mind.
Over the ocean, full of devotion;
For the girls we left behind.
Verse 2:
We’re each a son of Washington,
And each a man behind a gun;
Yo-ho! Yo-ho!
The fun’ral march is all rehearsed,
If we should see the Kaiser first;
Yo-ho! Yo-ho!
We don’t get much for what we do,
But what we do, means much to you;
Yo-ho! Yo-ho!
We have to leave our wives behind,
For fighting of a diff’rent kind;
Yo-ho! Yo-ho!
(CHORUS 2 times)
For more music of the 19th and 20th Centuries, visit http://pdmusic.org/
Missourians of the First World War