IDENTIFYING AN OBSCURE EXAMPLE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK

SO THERE I WAS, ON AN ERRAND of something or other, listening to SiriusXM “40s Junction.” As usual, I was delighting in The Great American Songbook, a topic appearing here occasionally at SimanaitisSays: “America’s Songs,” March 11, 2013; “The American Songbook Clicks Its Heels,” May 25, 2019; and  “On Feminine Rhymes,” May 14, 2022. 

This time around, though, it was something I hadn’t heard before: “I Wanna Get Married,” with melody and especially lyrics worthy of admittance into The Great American Songbook. Indeed, I came away recalling only two rhyming lines: “a cottage small/ where the railroad never stops./ I wanna sleep in pajama tops.”

Ha. This calls for some Internet sleuthing.

First Attempt: Googling “I Wanna Get Married.” Google came up with “Let’s Get Married,” by Jagged Edge, 1999. Er… Not the one. (And, by the way, complications of finding a “40s Junction” playlist had already proved fruitless.)

Second Attempt: “I Wanna Get Married Song Lyrics.” With all due respect to Jagged Edge, I thought maybe adding the word “Lyrics” might sharpen the focus. In fact, Google’s response initially looked promising: “Nellie McKay—I Wanna Get Married Lyrics.” 

This song opens with “I wanna get married./ Yes, I need a spouse./ I want a nice Leave It To Beaverish/ Golden retriever and a little white house.” Its next line rhymed “cute little lunches/ For my Brady bunches.” 

Well, yes; Google got the title right, but it surely didn’t sound like the ’40s.

A Third Attempt: Scary! My third attempt, subtly reworded, yielded a stern message: “This Connection is Not Private. This website may be impersonating ‘xxxxx’ to steal your personal or financial information. You should go back to the previous page.” 

And I did—immediately! 

Finally! Though labeled “Untitled,” History on the Net offered the song I was looking for and text I was seeking.

Here it is:

“I Wanna Get Married”

Words and Music by Dan Shapiro, Milton Pascal and Phil Charig
From the musical “Follow The Girls”
Published 1944

[verse 1]
Ev’rything is ready for the wedding,
The choir’s been rehearsing for a week,
The minister is standing in the pulpit
But it seems the groom is playing hide and seek,
So here I’m standing waiting starry eyed
When will I ever get to be a bride.

[chorus 1]
I Wanna Get Married,
I wanna get spliced
I long to be knotted
and see my friends potted
I wanna be confettied and riced
They say that married life
Is what one makes it
I’m sure I’ve got what it takes
But no one takes it
I wanna get settled
Crawl into a shell.
I wanna start cooing
and spend my life doing
the things that mom and pop used to spell,
Give me a cottage small
where a railroad never stops
I wanna sleep in pajama tops
I wanna get married

The other day a friend of mine had triplets,
The doctor placed them gently on her bed,
He asked if there was anything she wanted
She looked at him and this is what she said,
I’d like someone to share my hour of bliss,
Please call their daddy up and tell him this!”

[chorus 2]
I Wanna Get Married,
I wanna get spliced
I long to be knotted
and see my friends potted
I wanna be confettied and riced
When he said “I love you”
I was in clover
But I’m beginning to think
He slipped on over
I wanna get settled
I wanna be true
Though triplets are charming
it’s really alarming
what three Manhattan cocktails can do
Give me a cottage small
and a license I can frame
I wanna be “Missus What’s His Name?”
I wanna get married

What Witty Wording! “Spliced” and “riced.” “knotted” and “potted.” “They say that married life/ Is what one makes it./ I’m sure I’ve got what it takes/ But no one takes it.”

There’s also the great “Crawl into my shell” rhymed with “things mom and pop used to spell.” 

What’s more, nearby I found a YouTube of the version broadcast on “40s Junction.”

Gertrude Niesen singing “I Wanna Get Married,” thanks to A Trip Down Memory Lane YouTube.

Indeed, Gertrude’s Ending is Different. As noted by lyricsvault.net, Gertrude’s last couplet is “They say that magic thrill/ When they play ‘Here Comes The Bride’/ Works better than sulfanilamide./ I wanna get married.”

“Sulfanilamide”? Will this sleuthing never end? Wikipedia recounts that sulfanilamide, first prepared in 1908, “was used by the Allies in World War II to reduce infection rates and contributed to a dramatic reduction in mortality rates compared to previous wars.” This early antibiotic would have been familiar to wartime listeners; and women would have known its application in countering thrush.

Follow the Girls, a promotions caricature by Al Hirschfeld. 

Follow the Girls. Our song “I Wanna Be Married” is one of 13 in the 1944 musical Follow the Girls. Wikipedia describes it as “a major wartime hit in both New York City [888 performances] and London [572 more], its thin plot about a striptease queen who becomes a star attraction at the Spotlight, a servicemen’s club in Great Neck, Long Island.” The cast included Jackie Gleason (yes, that Jackie Gleason) and Gertrude Niesen (yes, this Gertrude Niesen). ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026