"If I Only Had The Nerve"
The Cowardly Lion's version, about courage, is the shortest of the three, and is connected to "We're Off to See the Wizard" by a bridge saying "Then I'm sure to get a brain; a heart; a home; the nerve" (a longer version was written, but it was shortened in the interest of balance, since Bert Lahr was given a second musical number, "If I Were King of the Forest," later in the film).
Lahr's natural regional accent was exploited and emphasized for comic effect in this song, which includes several words that are pronounced in a stereotypically "Brooklynese" way: "voive" for "verve", "desoive" for "deserve", and "noive" for "nerve".
The first line was initially recorded as "Yeah, it's sad to be it mitten/When you're vicious as a kitten," but it was eventually changed to "Yeah, it's sad, believe it, missy/When you're born to be a sissy." In a rather controversial line, Lahr sings "there's no denyin'/I'm just a dandelion (dandy lion)" sung with Lahr flipping his wrist forward on the word "dandelion" as if to infer his lack of courage is an effeminate trait.
Read more about this topic: If I Only Had A Brain
Famous quotes containing the word nerve:
“There must be some nerve and heroism in our love, as of a winter morning.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)