Lyrics to "Harvard Blues"

[William Denton]

Does anyone have the lyrics to "Harvard Blues," as done by Jimmy
Rushing? The first verse is

I wear Brooks clothes and white shoes all the time
I wear Brooks clothes and white shoes all the time
Get three Cs and a D, think cheque from home sublime

But then he starts tells Reinhart he's a most indifferent guy, and
that he loves his Vincents, and I'm not sure what the heck is going
on.

Thanks,

Bill
--
--
William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.

[BOBVL]

>Subject: Lyrics to "Harvard Blues"
>From: William Denton buff-...@pobox.com
>Date: 9/5/00 1:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <sG9t5.202$YG5....@tor-nn1.netcom.ca>

>
>Does anyone have the lyrics to "Harvard Blues," as done by Jimmy
>Rushing? The first verse is
>
> I wear Brooks clothes and white shoes all the time
> I wear Brooks clothes and white shoes all the time
> Get three Cs and a D, think cheque from home sublime
>
>But then he starts tells Reinhart he's a most indifferent guy, and
>that he loves his Vincents, and I'm not sure what the heck is going
>on
>

>Bill
>--
>--=================
No one does......
This is one of the grand unanswered conundrums of jazz...Jimmy was flummoxed by
the text but sang it most convincingly..
=bobvl.

[Michael Palmer]

This has been going on for years!!!!

Could be Vincent or Ten Cent

Mr Five by Five sang the George Frasier lyrics with Basie and listen
to that wonderful tenor solo.

I wear Brooks clothes and white shoes all the time
I wear Brooks clothes and white shoes all the time

Get three Cs, a D think a cheque from home sublime

I don't keep dogs or women in my room
I don't keep dogs or women in my room
But I love my Vincent (?) baby until the day of doom

Reinhart, Reinhart, I'm a most indifferent guy
Reinhart, Reinhart, I'm a most indifferent guy
But I love my Vincent (?) baby
And that ain't no Harvard lie.

On Tue, 05 Sep 2000 17:02:16 GMT, in rec.music.bluenote you wrote:

>Does anyone have the lyrics to "Harvard Blues," as done by Jimmy
>Rushing? The first verse is
>
> I wear Brooks clothes and white shoes all the time
> I wear Brooks clothes and white shoes all the time

> Get three Cs a D, and think cheque from home sublime

>
>But then he starts tells Reinhart he's a most indifferent guy, and
>that he loves his Vincents, and I'm not sure what the heck is going
>on.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Bill

Michael Palmer Western Port Bay Australia

[Thomas F Brown]

In article <gtobrs8dh6cg58om1...@4ax.com>,

Michael Palmer <mich...@alphalink.com.au> wrote:
>
>Reinhart, Reinhart, I'm a most indifferent guy
>Reinhart, Reinhart, I'm a most indifferent guy
>But I love my Vincent (?) baby
>And that ain't no Harvard lie.

Should be "that's no Harvard line."

I think it's "Vincennes", not Vincent.

[David Gascon]

No, "Vincent" makes more sense. A Bostonian response is required here. I
remember reading about the Vincent Club in the Boston papers years ago (possibly
in lyricist George Frasier's witty daily column in the *old* Herald), don't know
if it still exists: club for high society ladies, by invitation only, I think
they had a big charity ball every year. A "Vincent baby" would have been rolling
in culture & bucks.

[Dean Deeds]

In article <39B66776...@bigfoot.com>,

I asked about these lyrics several years ago in r.m.b, and got some
interesting comments. Reinhart (or however it's spelled) was a
character who would walk around the campus calling his own name,
for example. And while there wasn't a consensus on what Vincent was
(I thought it might have been a girls' school), David's explanation
is plausible,

Someone also recommended George Frazier's biography, "Another Man's
Poison." (By Charles Fountain, according to a quick search just now.)
It had some discussion of these lyrics -- but not enough to completely
dispel the mystery.

Frazier was a Boston columnist with a strong interest in jazz.
He wrote the lyrics to this song (his only one AFAIK), and was
very proud of his resulting ASCAP membership.

Geez, I've forgotten a lot of what I learned from that earlier discussion.
I guess that's why Usenet subjects recur regularly!

Dean Deeds

[William Denton]

Dean Deeds <de...@netcom.com> wrote:

: I asked about these lyrics several years ago in r.m.b, and got some

: interesting comments. Reinhart (or however it's spelled) was a
: character who would walk around the campus calling his own name, for
: example.

I've got another point of information about this. I'm reading Dos
Passos' USA trilogy, and in the second book, 1919, in the first
section on Richard Ellsworth Savage, there's this line (from when he's
at Harvard):

| When they crossed the Yard in the early summer dusk, fellows were
| leaning out the windows yelling 'Rinehart O Rinehart' and grackles
| were making a racket in the elms, and you could hear the screech of
| the streetcar wheels from Mass. Avenue; but there was a complete hush
| in the lowceiling room lit with candles where a scrubbylooking little
| man was reading aloud a story that turned out to be Kipling's 'The Man
| Who Would Be King.'"

That gives us the proper spelling, but I'd still like the full details
on this Rinehart fellow.

[Larry Spencer]

The following is from the album notes to Blues by Basie, Columbia CL 901
(reissued in 1980 as PC 36824), where the lyrics to Harvard Blues are
explained.

"Reinhardt is a legendary undergraduate of 19th Century vintage who, it is
said, used to stand under his own window at night and shout his name to give
the impression that he was the most socially desirable member of the student
body; his name has been perpetuated in university annals as a sort of
rallying cry, used in more recent times to announce the onset of a Spring
riot."

Larry