Lazybones or "Lazy Bones" is a Tin Pan Alley song written in 1933, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer and music by Hoagy Carmichael. Mercer was from Savannah, Georgia, and resented the Tin Pan Alley attitude of rejecting Southern regional vernacular in favor of artificial Southern songs written by people who had never been to the South. Alex Wilder attributes much of the popularity of this song to Mercer's perfect regional lyric. He wrote the lyrics to "Lazybones" as a protest against those artificial "Dixies", announcing the song's authenticity at the start with "Long as there is chicken gravy on your rice".

Recordings

The song has been recorded scores of times over the years: Recordings were released as early as 1933 by Jay Wilbur, Paul Robeson, and 1934 by the Mills Brothers,

Later recordings

It has been recorded by a variety of artists in a variety of genres:

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