"If You Don't Want My Peaches (You'd Better Stop Shaking My Tree)," ragtime Irving Berlin song, 1914

1914 ragtime-inspired Tin Pan Alley song by Irving Berlin, the great American songwriter. As in "Everybody's Doin' It Now,"    • "Everybody's Doin' It Now," Ragtime 1...  , we see Berlin's talent for mainstreaming ragtime with bright, contemporary lyrics. By 1914, Berlin was really hitting his stride as a successful composer; we see at the bottom of the 1914 sheet music that copyright was registered to the publishing house Waterson, Berlin, & Snyder Co.

#1910smusic #irvingberlin #ragtime #tinpanalley

Lyric:
Mary Snow had a beau
Who was bashful and shy
She simply couldn't make the boy propose
No matter how she'd try
Mary grew tired of waiting
So she called her beau one side
While he stood there, biting his fingernails,
Mary cried:

If you don't want my peaches
You'd better stop shaking my tree
Let me say that you're mighty slow
You're as cold as an Eskimo
There's a thousand others waiting
Waiting to propose to me
So, if you don't want my peaches
You'd better stop shaking my tree

Mary's Pa and her Ma
Soon came into the room
They took a look at Mary's beau and cried
"You ought to be a groom
Of course, it's none of our business
But she'd make a lovely bride"
He just answered, "I'll think it over," but
Mary cried