Lyrics to “Girls, Wait
for a Temperance Man”:
This sheet music, from 1867, goes with the Offbeat Oregon History article titled “Temperance crusaders showed saloon keeper a real 'bar fight,'" which you'll find here.
Title page information:
This image links to a PDF of the sheet music for this song. If you're
handy with a piano, this is everything you need to have a temperance
rally in your own drawing-room. (Image: Univ. of Oregon Libraries)
Humorous Song and Chorus as Sung by LITTLE EFFIE PARKHURST at the great temperance gatherings in New York, Brooklyn &c.
Words by MRS. M.A. KIDDER
Music by MRS. PARKHURST
Author of "Don't Marry a Man if He Drinks," "I'll Marry No Man if He Drinks," "Sign the Pledge for Mother's Sake," "Oh Help Little Mary the Drunkard's Poor Child."
Lyrics:
Young ladies, don't be in a hurry
To step into wedlock, I pray
Or set all your friends in a flurry
To fix for the wedding so gay.
But then as I know you're determined
A husband to get if you can,
Just take the advice I now offer,
And wait for a temperance man.
Girls, wait for a temperance man
A teetotaler if you can
For your life will be bright and your purse never light
If you wed with a temperance man.
Young men who are given to bitters
Or treating their friends on the sly
Tho' kneeling quite low in your presence
Will oftentimes get very high.
They feel quite at home on the corners,
They vote the excise law a bore,
And they've plenty of cloves in their pockets
When they visit a girl they adore.
Girls, wait for a temperance man
A teetotaler if you can
For your life will be bright and your purse never light
If you wed with a temperance man.
If your lover should venture to kiss you,
You'll find very soon out I think —
If you make use of one of your senses,
Whether he is addicted to drink.
And through that square hole in the shutter,
If one might but venture to peep,
They might there spy out their adorer
While all honest folks were asleep.
Girls, wait for a temperance man
A teetotaler if you can
For your life will be bright and your purse never light
If you wed with a temperance man.
Now girls, if you marry a drunkard,
A man who walks <i>this way and that</i>,
He scarcely will spare you a dollar
To buy a new dress or a hat.
But then as I know you're determined
A husband to get if you can,
Just take the advice I now offer
And wait for a temperance man.
Girls, wait for a temperance man
A teetotaler if you can
For your life will be bright and your purse never light
If you wed with a temperance man.