Lazybones (song)

For other uses, see Lazybones.

Lazybones or "Lazy Bones" is a Tin Pan Alley song written in 1933, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer and music by Hoagy Carmichael.

Mercer was from Savannah, Georgia, and resented the Tin Pan Alley attitude of rejecting Southern regional vernacular in favor of artificial Southern songs written by people who had never been to the South. Alex Wilder attributes much of the popularity of this song to Mercer's perfect regional lyric.[1] He wrote the lyrics to "Lazybones" as a protest against those artificial "Dixies", announcing the song's authenticity at the start with "Long as there is chicken gravy on your rice".[2]

  1. ^ Wilder, Alex (1990). American Popular Song: The Great Innovators 1900-1950. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-501445-6.
  2. ^ Furia, Philip (1992). Poets of Tin Pan Alley. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507473-4.