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 film At the Circus (1939) and became one of Groucho Marx's signature tunes.

It subsequently appeared in the movie The Philadelphia Story (1940), sung by Virginia Weidler as Dinah Lord.

The complex lyrics by Harburg – with clever rhymes such as "Lydia/encyclopedia" and "Amazon/pajamas on" – were inspired by W. S. Gilbert. Alternative lyrics suggest that Lydia's buttocks have tattoos of a map and a caricature of Hitler: "When she stands, the world grows littler. When she sits, she sits on Hitler."

The song was parodied by the Capitol Steps as "Libya, Oh Libya" (the Terrorist Nation) on their album Thank God I'm a Contra Boy and was featured in the 1991 film The Fisher King in reference to Amanda Plummer's character. It was used as a ringtone in the finale of the American TV show Breaking Bad and was also sung by Klinger in an episode of M.A.S.H. as well as playing in the background in the 1995 Western film Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch when Wiliam Blake enters the bar after being booted from Mr. Dickenson's office. Donald Duck repeatedly sings the song in "The Treasury of Croesus", having recently heard the song on TV and confusing the name with that of the ancient kingdom of Lydia.

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