OF LATE I'VE BEEN DRIVEN NEAR CRAZY

Of late I've been driven near crazy
All on account of my wife
She ran away with a Chinee
And left me to mourn all my life
I wrote her a million of letters
And asked her my faults to forget
No matter how many I wrote her,
These are the answers I get
Wait 'til the gang on the corner
Refuses to take a big bowl,
Wait 'til the bank robbers in Canada
Bring back all the money they stole,
When Jay Gould and the great Knights of Labor
And all the trade unions agree,
And the people don't back-bite their neighbors
Then, my darling, I'II come back to thee

She stole all my clothes and my money
She left me as poor as a mouse
Her actions were awfully funny
She stole all I had in the house
But I wrote her and said l'd forgive her
If she would but come back again
This morning I received a large letter
And this is what it did contain
Wait 'til the actors and married men
Agree with all business men
Wait 'til we find one who's hen-pecked
That's in love with his mother-in-law
When the KC's and Eagles and Masons
Unite in a grand jubilee
When the Chinese rule this nation
Then, my darling, I'll come back to thee

note: A sort-of update of Waly, Waly
From Folk Songs out of Wisconsin, Peters
Collected from Lester Coffee, Harvard, IL, 1946 who learned it
ca 1870-1880