Lydia the Tattooed Lady Lydia the Tattooed Lady "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady" is a 1939 song written by Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen. It first appeared in the Marx Brothers movie "At the Circus" (1939) and became one of Groucho Marx's signature tunes. The complex lyrics by Harburg – with clever rhymes such as "Lydia/encyclopedia" and "Amazon/pajamas on" – were inspired by W. S. Gilbert. Harburg made many contemporary references to topical personalities such as Grover Whalen, who opened the 1939 New York World's Fair. Among the items, persons, and scenes tattooed on Lydia's body are the Battle of Waterloo (on her back), "The
Thaxted (tune) Thaxted (tune) "Thaxted" is a hymn tune by the English composer Gustav Holst, based on the stately theme from the middle section of the "Jupiter" movement of his orchestral suite "The Planets" and named after Thaxted, the English village where he resided much of his life. He adapted the theme in 1921 to fit the patriotic poem "I Vow to Thee, My Country" by Cecil Spring Rice but that was as a unison song with orchestra. It did not appear as a hymn-tune called "Thaxted" until his friend Ralph Vaughan Williams included it in "Songs of Praise" in 1926. <score>\relative