Malvina Reynolds: Song Lyrics and Poems  

No House

Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1958 by the author, 1963 by Schroder Music Company. In the Table of Contents to her songbook Song in My Pocket Malvina writes of this song: "A children's song for grownups. I say let's build some fine, clean, sunny, roomy houses for children and their folks, instead of building cobalt bombs. After all, it's our money and our world..."

Oh the cat has a house,
And the rat has a house,
And the dog and the mouse and the flea;
And the snail has a house,
And the whale has a house,
And they all have a house but me.

Oh the pig has a pen,
There's a coop for the hen,
And the bird has a nest in the tree;
The snake has a hole,
So does the mole,
But there's no kind of place for me.

The sign on ev'ry building says,
"No children wanted here."
When I grow up the sign will say:
"Landlords kindly stay away."

Oh the cow has a house,
And the sow has a house,
And the Pentagon takes lots of scenery;
There's hangars for planes,
Roundhouses for trains,
Garages for cars and taverns for bars,
Buildings for stores with seventeen floors,
And money enough for three world wars,
But they couldn't build a house for me.

Malvina Reynolds songbook(s) in which the music to this song appears:
---- Song in My Pocket: Songs

Other place(s) where the music to this song appears:
---- Sing Out!, Volume 1(2) (1950), p. 12

Malvina Reynolds recording(s) on which this song is performed:
---- We Won't Move! Songs of the Tenants' Movement (Folkways FS 5287, 1983)