Chapter & Verse

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Chapter and Verse debuted in this magazine’s July-August 1979 issue in an effort to assist Robert B. Wood ’40, who had sent the editors a query they couldn’t answer, but hoped their readers could: “My sainted grandmother, born in Scotland, with some time in London before settling here in the U.S., sang a fine ditty—no doubt music hall somewhere—which started, ‘Oh, what will be the outcome / If the income don’t come in?/Where from will come the money/To buy the food and gin?’ Good question! But that’s all I remember. Where from, and what’s the rest of it?”

His question, though rerun in the digital age, remained unanswered until Eve Golden forwarded “What’s Gonna Be the Outcome If the Income Don’t Come In?” ©1935, with lyrics by Eddie Moran and music by Harry von Tilzer, uploaded by some kind soul to the Internet. An older, British version may lurk somewhere, but with this serendipitous citation, C&V bows to the resources of the World Wide Web and becomes an occasional item only. Send inquiries and answers to “Chapter and Verse,” Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge 02138 or chapterandverse@harvardmag.com.

You might also like

Harvard College Admits Class of 2028

A smaller undergraduate applicant cohort—the first since Supreme Court ended affirmative action 

Studying ChatGPT Like a Psychologist

Cognitive science helps penetrate the AI “black box”

Reparations as Public Health

A Harvard forum on the racial health gap

Most popular

Harvard College Admits Class of 2028

A smaller undergraduate applicant cohort—the first since Supreme Court ended affirmative action 

Diagnosis by Fiction

The “Healing Quartet,” by “Samuel Shem,” probes medicine—and life.

AWOL from Academics

Behind students' increasing pull toward extracurriculars

More to explore

Darker Days

The current disquiets compared to Harvard’s Vietnam-era traumas

Making Space

The natural history of Junko Yamamoto’s art and architecture

Spellbound on Stage

Actor and young adult novelist Aislinn Brophy