Clara Nolan’s Ball

Clara Nolan's Ball
As sung by Murray and Murphy
Words and Music by JF Mitchell

New York, Hitchcock Publishing Company


You're all invited and the band engaged,
And we're going to have some fun,
For Clara Nolan gives a ball,
This day she's twenty-one.
We've borrowed knives and table cloths
From all about the town,
And every man must bring a chair
If he wants to sit down.

Will you come? will you come?
And you never will forget it if you come,
Where the bells are ringing And the girls are singing,
And the fiddles and the harp go rum, tum, tum;
With teazing and pleasing, and squeezing free for all,
And courting in the corners at Miss Clara Nolan's ball.

Old Casey's coming with his Irish pipes,
And tiddler Neary, too;
They'll play you the Maria waltz,
And likewise Peek-a-boo.
Of course, it's not the Hoffman House,
Just walk inside the door;
If there's no place to hang your hats,
Just hang them on the floor.

The dance commences when the clock strikes ten,
And we'll keep it up till day;
There will be no collection
The expenses to defray.
We've bourbon, rye, and lager beer,
And Philadelphia ale;
And if the keg gets empty, we'll
Go out and fill the pail.