Good Morning, Dearie/Easy Pickin's

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Good Morning, Dearie (1921)
Jerome Kern (music) and Anne Caldwell (lyrics)
"Easy Pickin's"
792216Good Morning, Dearie — "Easy Pickin's"1921Jerome Kern (music) and Anne Caldwell (lyrics)
Verse 1

I was a second story worker up in Worcester, Mass,
'Til the cops got hep that the old lock step would keep me off'n the grass.
I passed some phoney money in the town of Keokuk,
When they saw me graft, how the jury laughed, For I was out of luck.
In Little Rock I cracked a safe for twenty thousand bones,
Instead of little rocks, they set me cracking great big stones.
When I sold the hicks some gold bricks in Nashville, Tennessee.
The county jail extended southern hospitality
But we learned something you can't learn in books,
Manhattan is the paradise for crooks.

Chorus

Easy pickin's, easy pickin's,
You can read the papers ev'ry day
Easy pickin's, easy pickin's
How we cop the jack and get away
You can talk about the hicks from Hicksville
Of the reubens and the small town gawk but
The biggest suckers you can meet are right on Forty Second Street,
In Old New York.
The crooks and dips for miles around,
Say that's the Happy Hunting Ground,
In Old New York.

Verse 2

I beaned a geezer on the beezer out in Evansville,
If it hadn't been for my nail file, I'd be picking pebbles still,
In Greenville, after passing out the green goods to the jays,
I was making little ones out of big ones there for sixty days.
I bumped a cove in Covington, the bulls they got me dead,
And in the Calaboose, they served me water with my bread.
But when I went up the river, it really was a shame,
I forged a lot of phoney checks, and signed the wardens name
So if a crook wants to keep out o' jail,
New Yorks the place to come and get the kale.

Chorus

Easy pickin's, easy pickin's,
You can read the papers ev'ry day
Easy pickin's, easy pickin's
How we cop the jack and get away
You can talk about the yaps from Yaphank
Of the reubens and the small town gawk but
A guy can pick an easy mark and sell him half o' Central Park,
In Old New York.
The biggest sucker's of them all,
Are those you meet in City Hall,
In Old New York.