Lyrics Nina / Begin The Beguine - Noël Coward, Peter Matz, Carlton Hayes

Nina / Begin The Beguine

Senorita Nina, from Argentina, knew all the answers
Although her relatives and friends were perfect dancers
She swore she’d never dance a step until she died
She said, «I've seen too many movies
And all they prove is
Too idiotic
They all insist that South America’s exotic
Whereas it couldn’t be more boring if it tried.
"
She added firmly that she hated
The sound of soft guitars beside a still lagoon
She also positively stated
That she could not abide a Southern moon
She said with most refreshing candor
That she thought Carmen Miranda
Was subversive propaganda
And should rapidly be shot
She said she didn’t care a jot
If people quoted her or not
She refused to Begin The Beguine when they requested it
And she made an embarrassing scene if anyone suggested it
For she detested it
Though no-one ever could be keener than little Nina
On quite a number of very eligible men who did the rhumba
When they proposed to her she simply left them flat
She said that love should be impulsive, but not convulsive
And syncopation had a discouraging effect on procreation
And that she’d rather read a book and that was that
Senorita Nina, from Argentina, despised the Tango
Although she never was a girl to let a man go
She wouldn’t sacrifice her principles for sex
She looked with scorn on the gyrations
Of her relations who did the conga
And said that if she had to stand it any longer
She’d lose all dignity and wring their silly necks
She said that frankly she was blinded
To all their over advertised romantic charms
And then she got more bloody minded
And told them where to put their tropic palms
She said, «I hate to be pedantic
But it drives me nearly frantic
When I see that unromantic, sycophantic lot of sluts
Forever wriggling their guts
It drives me absolutely nuts.
"
She declined to Begin The Beguine though they besought her to
And in language profane and obscene she cursed the man who taught her to
She cursed Cole Porter too
From this it’s fairly clear that Nina, in her demeanour
Was so offensive that when the hatred of her friends grew too intensive
She thought she’d better beat it while she had the chance
After some trial and tribulation, she reached the station
And met a sailor, who had acquired a wooden leg in Venezuela
And so he married him, because he couldn’t dance
There surely never could’ve been a
More irritating girl than Nina
They never speak in Argentina
Of this degenerate bambina
Who had the luck to find romance
But resolutely wouldn’t da-
She wouldn’t dance
Hola!