Ragtime Lyrics - Singles - Musical Cast Recording

In 1902, father built a house at the crest 

Of the Broadview Avenue hill in New Rochelle, New York 

And it seemed for some years thereafter 

That all the family's days would be warm and fair 

The skies were blue and hazy 

Rarely a storm, barely a chill 

The afternoons were lazy 

Everyone warm, everything still 

And there was distant music 

Simple and somehow sublime 

Giving a nation, a new syncopation 

The people called it ragtime 

And there was distant music 

Skipping a beat, singing a dream 

A strange, insistent music 

Putting out heat, picking up steam 

A sound of distant thunder 

Suddenly starting to climb 

It was the music of something beginning 

An era exploding, a century spinning 

In riches and rags 

And in rhythm and rhyme 

The people called it ragtime 

Ragtime, ragtime, ragtime