To Keep My Love Alive Music by Richard Rodgers Lyrics by Lorenz Hart

To Keep My Love Alive
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Lorenz Hart
Written for the revival of “A Connecticut Yankee”
Introduced by Vivienne Segal

According to a story told by Richard Rodgers Vivienne Segan complained that since the song ended on a low note “‘If I have to sing that low note eight nights a week, I’ll develop balls”” Rodgers replied, ‘If you do you’ll be the only one in the show who has them.”
According to “The Rodgers and Hammerstein encyclopedia” this is the last lyric that Lorenz Hart wrote but this is not totaly true: for the revival of “A Connecticut Yankee” Rodgers asked Hart to write some new material to make the show more apealing (Herbert Fields wrote a new book as well), even if the partnership with Hart was already “broken” (in 1942 Rodgers worte Oklahoma! with Oscar Hammerstein II).

For the show they wrote 9 new songs, two of them (Elaine and I Won’t sing a song were dropped before the New York opening).  to Robert Kimbal (who edited “the Complete Lyrics of Lorenz Hart) the last song Hart wrote was I Won’t sing a song.

“To Keep My Love Alive,” the most popular song from this 135-performance production, was a new number in which Morgan le Fay (Vivienne Segal) recalls the many husbands she “bumped off.”

Lyrics:
Verse
I’ve been married, and married, and often I’ve sighed
“I’m never a bridesmaid, I’m always a bride”

I never divorced them, I hadn’t the heart
Yet remember these sweet words, “`till death do us part”

Refrain 1
I married many men, a ton of them
Because I was untrue to none of them
Because I bumped off every one of them
To keep my love alive

Sir Paul was frail, he looked a wreck to me
At night he was a horse’s neck to me
So I performed an appendectomy
To keep my love alive

Sir Thomas had insomnia, he couldn’t sleep at night
I bought a little arsenic, he’s sleeping now all right

Sir Philip played the harp, I cussed the thing
I crowned him with his harp to bust the thing
And now he plays where harps are just the thing
To keep my love alive
To keep my love alive

Refrain 2
I thought Sir George had possibilities
But his flirtations made me ill at ease
And when I’m ill at ease, I kill at ease
To keep my love alive

Sir Charles came from a sanitorium
And yelled for drinks in my emporium
I mixed one drink, he’s in memorium
To keep my love alive

Sir Francis was a singing bird, a nightingale, that’s why
I tossed him off my balcony, to see if he, could fly

Sir Atherton indulged in fratricide,
He killed his dad and that was patricide
One night I stabbed him by my mattress-side
To keep my love alive
To keep my love alive

Verse 3
I caught Sir James with his protectoress,
The rector’s wife, I mean the rectoress.
His heart stood still, angina pectoris.
To keep my love alive.

Sir Frank brought ladies to my palaces
I poured a mickey in their chalices.
While paralyzed they got paralysis.
To keep my love alive.

Sir Alfred worshipped falconry,
He used to hunt at will.
I sent him on a hunting trip;
They’re hunting for him still.

Sir Peter had an incongruity,
Collecting girls with promiscuity.
Now I’m collecting his annuity,
To keep my love alive.

Sir Ethelburg would use profanity,
His language drove me near insanity.
So once again I served humanity,
To keep my love alive.

Sir Curtis made me cook each dish he ate,
And everything his heart would wish he ate.
Until I fiddled with a fish he ate.
To keep my love alive.

Sir Marmaduke was awfully tall,
He didn’t fit in bed.
I solved that problem easily,
I just removed his head.

Sir Marc adored me with formality.
He called a kiss a immorality.
And so I gave him immortality,
To keep my love alive.
To keep my love alive!

Notes
“to pour a Mickey” or “to slip a mickey”: Tricking someone into drinking a drugged beverage or sleeping pills