| While trav’ling through Turkey in my dreams
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| I chanced to stray
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| Right into a harem and it seems
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| They let me stay
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| I spoke to the Sultan’s favorite wife
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| Before I fled
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| I asked her how she liked harem life
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| Here’s what she said
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| Living in a harem, what a life
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| Ne’er a thought of care or strife
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| Waiting on the Sultan night and day
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| Ever ready to obey
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| He keeps me dancing morning, noon and night
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| Dancing fills 'im with delight
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| I am black and blue from the dance I do But outside of that ev’ry little thing’s all right
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| I wanted to know how many wives
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| The Sultan had
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| She answered each day a wife arrives
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| Fresh from Baghdad
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| How did he continue on that plan
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| So many years?
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| She answered «He's just a poor old man
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| With young ideas»
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| Eight of the Sultan’s wives are we And there are a whole lot more
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| Weekdays he marries two or three
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| And Sundays he marries four
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| He has a hundred agents who
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| Lead very busy lives
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| Keep him supplied with wives
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| And now we’ll tell in rhyme
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| Just how we spend our time
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| Ev’ry morning to his bed I bring his toast and tea
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| I prepare his bath for that’s the job he gave to me
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| I massage his brow because he likes my gentle touch
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| I then manicure his nails and never hurt him much
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| I bring him his slippers ev’ry evening after eight
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| I then fetch his cigarettes upon a silver plate
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| I arrange his bed at nine, he gets so sleepy then
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| I begin to dance and then he’s wide awake again
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| And then we all dance to the vision of Salome |