Sahara, Now We're Dry Like You

SAHARA, NOW WE'RE DRY LIKE YOU

by Alfred Bryan & Jean Schwartz
as sung by Esther Walker


King Ram-e-ses went to pieces seven thousand years ago
And passed a law that Egypt must go dry.
He took the liquors from the slickers all the way to Jerico
But kept a little toddy on the sly.
The desert of Sahara flowed with honey, so they say,
Till prohibition came along and dried it up one day.

Sahara, we sympathize with you.
Sahara, now we're dry like you.
I know why Cleopatra put that snake against her skin.
She lost her mind completely when she lost her Gordon's Gin.
Omar Khyam took a leap into his caravan.
He took his wine glass, and away he flew.
And ever since,
All those Egyptians move their funny arms so queer.
They got that way 
From reaching for imaginary steins of beer.
Sahara, Sahara, now we're dry like you.

I know just why Rebecca took her little pitcher to the well.
That old well just was camouflaging for a lager beer hotel.
Sahara, Sahara, now we're dry like you.
I've got the old Sahara prohibition blues.

Notes: This is a fine example of the topical novelty song, but a shoddy piece of Egyptology. America was correct to sympathize with the Near East as being the only other area inflicted with the prohibition of alcohol. Egypt did not go dry, however, until after the Muslim conquest in 642. Egypt had some dozen kings named Rameses in the 19th and 20th dynasties, ranging from 1320 B.C. to 1085 B.C., the most noted of whom was the second Rameses, "The Great", (known to the Greeks as Sesostris) who reigned 1300 B.C. to 1280 B.C. Cleopatra was as far from being a contemporary of Rameses as Theda Bara was from Charlemagne. Again, there were several Cleopatras, that name being used by the wives/sisters of the Alexandrian Pharohs. The last and by far best remembered was the seventh, the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, who lived c. 69 B.C. to 30 B.C. and was indeed, as Ukulele Ike observed, a "vamp". While other temporal incongruities could be pointed out, all this is only to illustrate why few popular novelty songs were known to have been written by prominent historians.

Back to Contents

Next song alphabetically: She Keeps It Up All The Time