Nina Songtext

von Noël Coward

Señorita Nina, from Argentina, knew all the answers
Though her relatives and friends were perfect dancers
She swore she'd never dance a step until she died

She said, "I've seen too many movies, and all they prove is too idiotic.
They all insist that South America's exotic
Whereas it couldn't be more boring if it tried."

She added firmly that she hated
The sound of soft guitars beside a still lagoon
She also positively stated
That she could not abide a Southern moon

She said "I hate to be pedantic but I'm driven nearly frantic
When I see that unromantic, sycophantic lot of sluts
Forever wriggling their guts.
It drives me absolutely nuts."

She refused to Begin The Beguine when they requested it
And she made an embarrassing scene if anyone suggested it
For she detested it.

Though no-one ever could be keener than little Nina
On quite a number of very eligible men who did the rhumba
When they proposed to her she simply left them flat.
She said that love should be impulsive, but not convulsive
And syncopation had a discouraging effect on procreation
And that she'd rather read a book and that was that.

Señorita Nina, from Argentina, despised the Tango
Although she never was a girl to let a man go
She wouldn't sacrifice her principles for sex.

She looked with scorn on the gyrations
Of her relations who danced the conga
And swore that if she had to stand it any longer
She'd lose all dignity and ring their silly necks.

She said that frankly she was blinded
To all the over advertised romantic charms
And then she got more bloody minded
And told them where to put their tropic palms.

And she could not refrain from saying that their idiotic swaying
And those damned guitarras playing were an insult to her race
And that she really couldn't face
Such international disgrace

She declined to Begin The Beguine when they besought her to
And with language profane and obscene she cursed the man who taught her to
She cursed Cole Porter too.

From this its fairly clear that Nina, in her demeanour
Was so offensive that when the hatred of her friends grew too intensive
She thought she'd better beat it while she had the chance

After some trial and tribulation, she reached the station
And met a sailor, who had acquired a wooden leg in Venezuela
And so he married him, because he couldn't dance.

There surely never could've been a
More irritating girl than Nina
They never speak in Argentina
Of this degenerate bambina
Who had the luck to find romance
But resolutely wouldn't dance.