The Cats of Paree

It's been many years since I've been to Paree
Where I played for that French girl. Her name was Marie.
And she sang, she sang so lyrically.

"Oui, I'm a cat."
" I don't care about that.
But don't you think you could play in B-flat?"

I murmured "Oui" as I changed the key
And Marie she sang so beautifully.
A beautiful song without any "Rien"
And when it was over she sang it again.

I'd felt half dead. This was in '45.
But as Marie sang I felt quite alive.
Ah, that beautiful song without any "Rien"
Just me and Marie. That's the way we were then.

All over. All over. Yet what can I say?
Well met by moonlight on the Champs d'Elysee!

The words of my Daddy I still can recall
“If you just write light verse then you’re nothing at all.”
This was in the Fifties and there were many sad men
Who remembered their twenties in the forties and then
Wrote many sad poems where they danced the tango
With sweet girls from Paris “It was long ago
In forty five after the Germans had gone
She was so sweet and so pale and so wan
She was so sad and when we went to bed
“Just hold me, please hold me,” was all that she said.
And the room was so cold and there was no light
And the cats of Paree howled all the damn night.”