Lyrics

There once was a man from Nantucket
So the bards of the bathroom agree
Who was, for the sake of an obvious rhyme
The subject of much ribaldry
For all the crude versifications
The sound of Nantucket had spawned
Not a poet among them had given a thought
To the man, to the man they had wronged

Oh, there once was a man from Nantucket
Who sought neither fortune nor fame
T’was just by a stroke of bad luck it
Was not from New Bedford he came

I once knew the man from Nantucket
An upstanding fellow was he
His job was to light up the lighthouse
For ships that were out on the sea
The man’s given name was Dick Dangle
By some kind of cruel twist of fate
He suffered a certain condition
An unfortunate family trait

Oh, there once was a man from Nantucket
Who sought neither fortune nor fame
T’was just by a stroke of bad luck it
Was not from Sag Harbor he came

Shakespeare sat down in the rest room
With a goose feather pen in his hand
“There once was a man from Nantucket”
Was the way that his po-em began
He stared into space for a moment
As he searched for a suitable rhyme,
Now we all know the rest of the story
So without further wasting your time

Oh, there once was a man from Nantucket
Who sought neither fortune nor fame
T’was just by a stroke of bad luck it
Was not from Cape Cod that he came
Not from New Bedford
Not from Sag Harbor
Nor Martha’s Vineyard that he came