What You Want Wid Bess?

(album: The Complete Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong on Verve - 1997)

Oh... What you want wid Bess?
She's getting ole now;
Take a fine young gal
For to satisfy Crown.

Look at this chest
An' look at these arms you got.
You know how it always been with me,
These five years I been yo' woman,

You could kick me in the street,
Then when you wanted me back,
You could whistle, an' there I was
Back again, licking yo' hand.

There's plenty better looking gal than Bess.
Can' you see, I'm with Porgy,
Now and forever
I am his woman, he would die without me.

Oh, Crown, won't you let me go to my man, to my man.
He is a cripple an' needs my love, all my love.
What you want wid Bess? Oh, let me go to my man...

What I wants wid other woman,
I gots a woman, yes,
An' dat is you, yes, dat is you, yes,
I need you now an' you're mine jus' as long as I want you.

No cripple going take my woman from me.
You got a man tonight an' that is Crown, yes, Crown, yes crown.
You're my woman, Bess, I'm telling you, now I'm your man.

What you want with Bess?

Lemme go, Crown dat boat, it's going without me!

You ain't going nowhere!

Take yo' hands off me, I say, yo' hands, yo' hands, yo hands.

I knows you' aing change wid you and me it always be the same.
Git in dat thicket.