"[']Round the Other
Way" [1893]
Comic Song & Chorus
Written & Composed by
James McAvoy

New York, NY: M. WHITMARK & SONS, 51 West 28th Street.
London, England: CHA[rle]S. SHEARD & CO.
[Source: 143/117@Levy]

1. There’s quite a little story that’s connected with my song.
Don’t go until I tell it as it will not take me long.
I do ev’rything left handed and once I was quite strong,
Today I walked down in a hole and someone said you’re wrong.

CHORUS 1
Go ’round the other way,
Go ’round the other way.
The note was there before my nose
the sign was up this street is closed
Go ’round the other way
Go ’round the other way
I hear that funny exclamation
fifty times a day.

2. Saloons were closed ’twas after hours the front doors they were locked
At one I stopped and tried the door and then I kicked and knocked
The latch I then worked up and down to get a drink I tried,
’Till a roundsman said you fool there’s an entrance on the side

CHORUS 2
Go ’round the other way,
Go ’round the other way
Just tell the bartender I’m here
to send me out a pony beer
Go ’round the other way
Go ’round the other way
And work it up for me  I haven’t
had a drink today.

3. Last night the clock was striking twelve for home I made a break
I thought my wife would be asleep but found her wide awake
She’d gone out looking after me the copper told me so,
“She swears she’s going to do you says the p’lice you’d better go”

CHORUS 3
Around the other way,
Go ’round the other way
She’s in the middle of the block
she’s got a flat iron and a rock
Go ’round the other way
Go ’round the other way
And p’lice was right I took his tip
around the other way.

4. Upon the stage I went a marching with some other dupes
I had a spear and fell in with a lot of other supes
The captain of the gang howled out you chump you cannot act,
For doing wrong a slapstick on my trouserloons he cracked

CHORUS 4
Go ’round the other way,
Go ’round the other way
Around I went before I knew
he sprung a trap and I went through
Yes down the other way
Around the other way
I landed on my collar bone
out in the alleyway.

5. I boarded in a boarding house the steak was tough as board
I left and did not settle it was on my own accord
My trunk I lowered with a rope and so did all the rest,
And how the dickens we escaped the landlord said he guessed.

CHORUS 5
Go ’round the other way,
That’s how we got away
And just before the cocks they crew
the twentytwo got up and flew
Around the other way
Around the other way
We all went down the fire escape
around the other way.

6. I'm smitten on a girl who’s just three hundred pounds in weight
I call upon her early and I linger very late
My arms are short and when I squeeze it only is a bluff,
Next night I start a squeezing at the place where I left off.

CHORUS 6
Go ’round the other way,
Around the other way
I squeeze here left and squeeze her right
I shifted ev’ry other night
Around the other way
Around the other way
I couldn’t reach around her waist
in any other way.