Seventy Six Trombones

Please, folks, may I have your attention, please

Attention, please

I can deal with the troubled friends with a wave of my hand

This very hand

Please observe me, if you will

I'm professor Harold Hill

And I'm here to organize a River City boys' band

Oh think, my friends, how could any pool table

Ever hope to compete with a gold trombone?

Rah-rah, rah-dee-dat-dah-dah, rah-rah

Remember, my friends, what a handful of trumpet players

Did to the famous fabled walls of Jericho

Oh, billiard parlor walls come a-tumblin' down

Oh, a band'll do it, my friends

Oh yes, I said a boys' band, do you hear me?

I said River City gotta have a boys' band

And I mean, she needs it today

Well, Professor Harold Hills on hand

River City's gonna have her boys' band

As sure as the Lord made little green apples

And that band's gonna be in uniform

Johnny, Willy, Teddy, Fred

And you'll see the glitter of crashing cymbals

And you'll hear the thunder of rolling drums

And the shimmer of trumpets, ta-ta-ta

And you'll feel some akin to the electric thrill I once enjoyed

When Gilmore, Librati, Pat Conway

The Great Creator, W.C. Handy and John Philip Sousa

All came to town on the very same historic day

Seventy six trombones led the big parade

With a hundred and ten cornets close at hand

They were followed by rows and rows of the finest virtuosos

The cream of every famous band

Seventy six trombones caught the morning sun

With a hundred and ten cornets right behind

There were more than a thousand reeds springing up like weeds

There were horns of every shape and kind

There were copper bottom tympani in horse platoons

Thundering, thundering all along the way

Double bell euphoniums and big bassoons

Each bassoon having his big fat say

There were fifty mounted cannon in the battery

Thundering, thundering louder than before

Clarinets of every size and trumpeters who'd improvise

A full octave higher than the score

Seventy six trombones hit the counter point

While a hundred and ten cornets blazed the way

To the rhythm of harch, harch, harch, all the kids began to march

And they're marching still right today