The Fiddle is a Devil

Sung to the timeless oldtime fiddle tune Ragtime Annie.

Dedicated to those countless unfortunates who discovered the fiddle

and the tens of thousands of very old tunes which may be endlessly played upon it.

 

 

 

Oh, the fiddle is a devil, it possesses you,

You play it when you’re happy and you play it when you’re blue,

A’deedle eedle leedle eedle, deedle eedle ay,

The rhythm of the fiddle haunts you night and day;

You go to bed at night but you don’t count sheep,

Your mind is on the fingerboard till you go to sleep,

It’s a plague, it’s a curse called fiddler’s disease,

And the longer that you play it you get harder to please.

I fiddle and I diddle with my bow,

I play it fast and slow,

People think I’m kinda lazy but I’m really fiddle crazy

And I take my fiddle everywhere I go;

Do they understand when they ask me how I am

And I say I’m just a’fiddlin’ around?

It’s become my life, a never ending strife,

This fiddle’s gonna put me in the ground.

©William D. Coffey et al,  c. 1985

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