Hong Kong Blues

Song by Hoagy Carmichael

Cricket - Hong Kong Blues (To Have and Have Not, 1944)(youtube)

It's the story of a very unfortunate colored man / Who got arrested down in old Hong Kong / He got twenty years privilege taken away from him / When he kicked old Buddha's gong

And now he's poppin' the piano just to raise the price / Of a ticket to the land of the free / Well, he say his home's in Frisco where they send the rice / But it's really in Tennessee

That's why he said, "I need someone to love me / Need somebody to carry me home to San Francisco / And bury my body there / Oh, I need someone to lend me a fifty dollar bill and then / I'll leave Hong Kong (far) behind me for happiness once again"

Won't somebody believe / I've a yen to see that Bay again? / But when I try to leave / Sweet opium won't let me fly away

I need someone to love me / Need somebody to carry me home to San Francisco / And bury my body there

That's the story of a very unfortunate colored man / Who got arrested down in old Hong Kong / He got twenty years privilege taken away from him / When he kicked old Buddha's gong