Nina

Album: Masters (1944)
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  • Señorita Nina, from Argentina, knew all the answers
    Though her relatives and friends were perfect dancers
    She swore she'd never dance a step until she died

    She said, ""I've seen too many movies, and all they prove is too idiotic.
    They all insist that South America's exotic
    Whereas it couldn't be more boring if it tried.""

    She added firmly that she hated
    The sound of soft guitars beside a still lagoon
    She also positively stated
    That she could not abide a Southern moon

    She refused to Begin The Beguine when they requested it
    And she made an embarrassing scene if anyone suggested it
    For she detested it.

    Though no-one ever could be keener than little Nina
    On quite a number of very eligible men who did the rhumba
    When they proposed to her she simply left them flat.

    She said that love should be impulsive, but not convulsive
    And syncopation had a discouraging effect on procreation
    And that she'd rather read a book and that was that.

    Señorita Nina, from Argentina, despised the Tango
    Although she never was a girl to let a man go
    She wouldn't sacrifice her principles for sex.

    She looked with scorn on the gyrations
    Of her relations who danced the conga
    And swore that if she had to stand it any longer
    She'd lose all dignity and wring their silly necks.

    She said that frankly she was blinded
    To all the over advertised romantic charms
    And then she got more bloody minded
    And told them where to put their tropic palms.

    She said ""I hate to be pedantic but I'm driven nearly frantic
    When I see that unromantic, sycophantic lot of sluts
    Forever wriggling their guts.
    It drives me absolutely nuts.""

    She declined to Begin The Beguine when they besought her to
    And with language profane and obscene she cursed the man who taught her to
    She cursed Cole Porter too.

    From this it's fairly clear that Nina, in her demeanour
    Was so offensive that when the hatred of her friends grew too intensive
    She thought she'd better beat it while she had the chance

    After some trial and tribulation, she reached the station
    And met a sailor, who had acquired a wooden leg in Venezuela
    And so she married him, because he couldn't dance.

    There surely never could've been a
    More irritating girl than Nina
    They never speak in Argentina
    Of this degenerate bambina
    Who had the luck to find romance
    But resolutely wouldn't dance. Writer/s: NOEL COWARD, NOEL PIERCE COWARD
    Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

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