"Rock Island" is a song featured in the 1962 film The Music Man with music and lyrics written by Meredith Wilson. As the opening song of the film, it shows real traveling salesmen discussing their wares, trade, and Professor Harold Hill. As the salesmen are on a train, the song’s beat and percussion is supposed to resemble a train.
Lyrics[]
1st Salesman:
Cash for the merchandise, cash for the button hooks
3rd Salesman:
Cash for the cotton goods, cash for the hard goods
1st Salesman:
Cash for the soft goods, cash for the fancy goods
2nd Salesman:
Cash for the noggins and the piggins and the firkins
3rd Salesman:
Cash for the hogshead, cask and demijohn
Cash for the crackers and the pickles and the flypaper
4th Salesman:
Look whatayatalk, whatayatalk, whatayatalk, whatayatalk, whatayatalk?
5th Salesman:
Wheredayagitit?
4th Salesman:
Whatayatalk?
1st Salesman:
Ya can talk, ya can talk, ya can bicker, ya can talk
Ya can bicker, bicker, bicker, ya can talk, ya can talk
Ya can talk, talk, talk, talk, bicker, bicker, bicker
Ya can talk all ya want but is different than it was
Charlie:
No it ain't, no it ain't, but you gotta know the territory
Rail Car:
Shh shh shh shh shh shh shh
3rd Salesman:
Why it's the Model T Ford made the trouble
Made the people wanna go, wanna get, wanna get
Wanna get up and go seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve
Fourteen, twenty-two, twenty-three miles to the county seat
1st Salesman:
Yes sir, yes sir
3rd Salesman:
Who's gonna patronize a little bitty two by four kinda store anymore?
4th Salesman:
Whaddaya talk, whaddaya talk
5th Salesman:
Where do you get it?
1st Salesman:
Gone, gone
Gone with the hogshead cask and demijohn
Gone with the sugar barrel pickle barrel, milk pan
Gone with the tub and the pail and the tierce
2nd Salesman:
Ever meet a fellow by the name of Hill?
1st Salesman:
Hill?
Charlie:
Hill?
3rd Salesman:
Hill?
4th Salesman:
Hill?
1st Newspaper:
Hill?
2nd Newspaper:
Hill?
5th Salesman:
Hill?
2nd Salesman:
Hill!
All but Charlie & 2nd Salesman:
NO!
Charlie:
Just a minute, just a minute, just a minute
4th Salesman:
Never heard of any salesman Hill
2nd Salesman:
Now he doesn't know the territory
1st Salesman:
Doesn't know the territory?!?
3rd Salesman:
What's the fellow's line?
2nd Salesman:
Never worries 'bout his line
1st Salesman:
Never worries 'bout his line?!?
2nd Salesman:
Or a doggone thing, He's just a bang beat, bell ringing
Big haul, great go, neck-or-nothing, rip roarin'
Every time a bull's eye salesman
That's Professor Harold Hill, Harold Hill
3rd Salesman:
What's the fellow's line?
5th Salesman:
What's his line?
Charlie:
He's a fake, and he doesn't know the territory!
Look, whaddaya talk, whaddaya talk, whaddaya talk, whaddaya talk?
2nd Salesman:
He's a music man
3rd Salesman:
He's a what?
2nd Salesman:
He's a music man and he sells clarinets
To the kids in the town with the big trombones
And the rat-a-tat drums, big brass bass, big brass bass
And the piccolo, the piccolo with uniforms, too
With a shiny gold braid on the coat and a big red stripe runnin'...
1st Salesman:
Well, I don't know much about bands but I do know
You can't make a living selling big trombones, no sir
Mandolin picks, perhaps and here and there a Jew's harp...
2nd Salesman:
No, the fellow sells bands, Boys' bands
I don't know how he does it but he lives like a king
And he dallies and he gathers and he plucks and he shines
And when the man dances certainly, boys, what else?
The piper pays him! Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir
When the man dances, certainly, boys, what else?
The piper pays him! Yessssir, Yessssir
Charlie:
But he doesn't know the territory!
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