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The Marx Brothers |
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Disclaimer |
Frank Bland's Why A Duck? |
Mikael Uhlin's Marxology
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|
The Marx Brothers |
|
Disclaimer |
Frank Bland's Why A Duck? |
Mikael Uhlin's Marxology
Unless we tell you who we are, you'll never guess
We're not Napoleon or da Vinci
A lot of people think we are, but none the less
We're not Napoleon or da Vinci
We're not even Washington or Lincoln
Jefferson or Alexander Carr
You'd be wrong whoever you begin on
So we'll let you in on who we are
So stand by, unseen listeners
(bugle call)
chorus
We're four of the three musketeers
We've been together for years
Eenie, meenie, minee (horn)
Four of the three musketeers
We live by the sword, by the sea, by the way
And we fight day and night
And we sleep night and day
My country 'tis of thee
Land of the light wines and beers
We're cheered from Cologne to Algiers
Each time our motto appears
It's one for all and two for five
We're four of the three musketeers
patter
When the Queen needs recreation and she strolls along the path
Where are we? Right by her side
When she's filled with jubilation or consumed with raging wrath
Where are we? Right by her side
We've sworn that we'd shield and protect her
We're her guardsmen, true and tried
When she gets up in the morning and she slips into her bath
Where are we? Far from the old folks at home
second chorus
We're four of the three musketeers
We've been together for years
Athos, Pathos, Mathos (horn)
Four of the three musketeers
We fight for the King, for the Queen, for the Jack
And we're first at the front
When the front's at the back
Three cheers for Richelieu
Here's how we give him the cheers (business)
The foe trembles each time it hears
This motto ring in its ears
It's one for all and two for five
We're four of the three musketeers
Three chairs/cheers ! ! !
Although this song was omitted from the Animal Crackers-film, the "three cheers/chairs"-joke was used in the dialogue. It has also been speculated that the "one for all, two for five"-bit inspired a remark by Groucho in the film The Cocoanuts: "One for all and all for me, me for you and three for five and six for a quarter". The Cocoanuts was filmed while the Marxes performed Animal Crackers on stage and singing The Musketeers may have initiated a change of this passage, which in the script was: "Now and forever, one and indivisible, one for all and all for me and me for you, and tea for two." An instrumental midi-version of The Musketeers can be found among many other items at Frank M. Bland's site Why A Duck, in the Midi Files-section.
Even if The Musketeers didn't appear in the film version of Animal Crackers, it WAS featured in Paramount's 1938-movie Cocoanut Grove. That movie is about swing band leader Fred MacMurray (as Johnny Prentice) trying to get his Chicago-based band across the US to make the legendary Cocoanut Grove in LA. The Musketeers is performed by the Yacht Club Boys, a "nut" singing group consisting of Charles Adler, George Kelly, James Kern and Billy Mann. This quartet hailed from the Catskills circuit and has been described as "the WASP" or "the Gentile" Ritz Brothers.
The Yacht Club Boys appeared in a couple of films in the 1930s like Pigskin Parade (with Judy Garland) and The Singing Kid (with Al Jolson). One of the co-stars of Cocoanut Grove was Eve Arden, known to Marxonians as Peerless Pauline in At the Circus. At times, the Ritz Brothers have been compared to the Marxes and the camaraderie of the Musketeers certainly links these groups with the Yacht Club Boys - the Ritzes appeared in the 1939 film Three Musketeers while the Marx Brothers and the Yacht Club Boys both sang about the strength of being four of the three musketeers!