Songtext Man bites dog Irving Berlin

Man bites dog

[Reporter:]
I've got a headline
Oh, what a headline
Off the beaten track
A dog bit a man and the man bit the dog right back

[Editor:]
You can print what Roosevelt said
On the front page for a great big spread

[Reporter:]
But I've got a headline
Oh, what a headline
Off the beaten track
A dog bit a man and the man bit the dog right back

[Editor:]
Hold the wire, it's hard to hear
There is someone screaming in my ear
What the hell's the matter with you and why the big enthuse?

[Reporter:]
A man was bitten by a dog
[Editor:]
I know but that's not news

[Reporter:]
But the man bit the dog right back

[Editor:]
What's that you say?
Got no time for gags today

[Reporter:]
But this is no gag, it's on the square
I just this minute came back from there

[Editor:]
You just this minute came back from where?

[Reporter:]
From a swell Park Avenue shack
Where a dog bit a man and the man bit the dog right back

[Editor:]
Never mind that Roosevelt speech
I've a headline now that is a peach
It's a most important story that'll set the town agog
Kill the Roosevelt spread, print this instead:
Man bites dog!

[Newsies:]
Extra! Extra! Extra! Extra! Man bites dog!
Extra! Man bites dog! Extra! Man bites dog!
Man bites dog! Man bites dog! Man bites dog!

[Ensemble:]
At last! At last!
A man bit a dog at last
And it seems to Heywood Brown
That the world is out of tune
That if things don't happen soon
We'll all be biting dogs next June
At last! At last!
A man bit a dog at last
And Mister Hearst has a chance
To kick the French in the pants
He says that the man who bit the dog was a native of France
And Winchell's all agog
He interviewed the dog
And he says that the pretty Pom
Is soon to become a mom
It's a dog you hate to be with
The kind you see with the rich
Not a great big manly he-dog
A little she-dog
A bitch!
Which gives us a headline off the beaten track:
A bitch bit a man and the man bit the bitch right back!