Adelaide's Lament (from "Guys And Dolls")

(album: The Broadway Album - 1985)

The average unmarried female
Basic'lly insecure
Due to some long frustration
May react
With psychosomatic symptoms
Difficult to endure
Affecting the upper respiratory tract
In other words,
Just from waiting around
For that little band of gold
A person can develop a cold
You can spray her wherever you figure
The streptococci lurk
You can give her a shot
For whatever she's got
But it just won't work
If she's tired of getting the fish-eye
From the hotel clerk
A person
Can develop a cold
The female remaining single
Just in the legal sense
Shows a neurotic tendency
See note:
Note: Chronic organic syndromes
Toxic and hypertense
Involving the eye,
The ear and the nose and throat
In other words,
Just from worrying
Whether the wedding is on or off,
A person
Can develop a cough
You can feed her all day
With the Vitamin A
And the Bromo Fizz
But the medicine never
Gets anywhere near
Where the trouble is
If she's getting a kind
Of name for herself
And the name ain't "his"
A person
Can develop a cough
And further more
Just from stalling
And stalling and stalling
The wedding trip
A person
Can develop La grippe
When they get on a train
For Niag'ra
And she can hear church bells chime
The compartment is air conditioned
And the mood sublime
Then they get off at Saratoga
For the fourteenth time
A person
Can develop La grippe
La grippe, La post nasal drip
With the wheezes
And the sneezes
And a sinus that's really a pip!
For a lack of community property
And a feeling she's getting too old
A person
Can develop
A bad, bad cold!