There's No Business Like Show Business (song)

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Album This song officially appears on the Post Card (UK version - Stereo) LP.

Timeline This song has been officially released in 1969

Timeline This song has been recorded in 1968

There's A Place

They Call My Baby Baby

Related sessions

This song has been recorded during the following studio sessions

"Post Card" sessions

Early October 1968 to early December 1968

Other songs written by Irving Berlin

Always

Officially appears on Kisses On the Bottom

Related interviews

"She's A Joan Baez Type, But We'll Soon Alter That"

Jan 01, 1992 • From Goldmine Magazine

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Song facts

From Wikipedia:

“There’s No Business Like Show Business” is an Irving Berlin song, written for the 1946 musical Annie Get Your Gun and orchestrated by Ted Royal. The song, a slightly tongue-in-cheek salute to the glamour and excitement of a life in show business, is sung in the musical by members of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in an attempt to persuade Annie Oakley to join the production. It is reprised three times in the musical. […]

Mary Hopkin covered “There’s No Business Like Show Business” on her 1969 album “Post Card” produced by Paul McCartney.

This was another one I was scared to do, because for me it was so different. I like it because it’s a sad song, basically. And yet it’s full of hope and cheer.
Mary Hopkin – From New Musical Express, February 22, 1969

On Post Card, you cut those big, show–stopping songs, like “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Someone To Watch Over Me.” Was Paul pushing those on you?
Not really. Paul and I talked things over. I didn’t know what I was capable of anyway, and I thought, “He must know better than I do.” I mean, I didn’t really question it. There were songs I was obviously much more comfortable with, like the Donovan songs. I was completely at ease with those, and those would’ve led directly into Earth song Ocean Song, where I did choose the songs.
Mary Hopkin – Interview with Goldmine Magazine, 1992

Last updated on September 25, 2021

Lyrics

The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the clerk
Are secretly unhappy men because
The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the clerk
Get paid for what they do but no applause
They'd gladly bid their dreary jobs goodbye
For anything theatrical and why

There's no business like show business
Like no business I know
Everything about it is appealing
Everything the traffic will allow
Nowhere could you get that happy feeling
When you are stealing that extra bow

There's no people like show people
They smile when they are low
Even when they tell you that your show will fold
You may be stranded out in the cold
Still, you wouldn't change it for a sack of gold
Let's go on with the show

The cowboys, the tumblers, the wrestlers, the clowns
The roustabouts who move the show at dawn
The music, the spotlight, the people, the towns
Your baggage with the labels pasted on
The sawdust and the horses and the smell
The towel you've taken from the last hotel

There's no business like show business
Like no business I know
You get word before the show has started
That your favorite uncle died at dawn
Top of that your pa and ma have parted
You're broken hearted but you go on

There's no people like show people
They smile when they are low
Yesterday, they told you, you would not go far
That night you opened and there you are
Next day, on your dressing room they've hung the star
Let's go on with the show