It Doesn't Cost A Dime To Dream
1950



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Highlights
  • Written for the 1951 Paramount Pictures film The Lemon Drop Kid, starring Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell.
  • When the Lemon Drop Kid accidentally steers Moose Moran's girl away from a winning bet, he's forced to come up with $10, 000 to repay the angry gangster. Fortunately it's Christmas, a time when people can be persuaded to part with money for the right cause.



Recording History
Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell
Jon Weber, It's Never Quite the Same, Mood Records, MD-1111, 1998
Lyrics
Spoken:
I’ll show you how to own the moon
And how to bounce the world just like a toy balloon.
I’ll show you how to have your way
And help yourself to wishes on a silver tray. 

Someday we’ll fly to Bali Ha’i
Or any other island you would like to buy;
You can travel cheap when you’re fast asleep
‘Cause it doesn’t cost a dime to dream. 

We’ll line our walls with dollar bills
And use the wrinkled ones to wipe our windowsills.
Pour our old champagne down the kitchen drain.
It doesn’t cost a dime to dream. 

We will call at the president’s family residence,
Pay off the national debt.
And if we find the president slightly hesitant,
We’ll say we have a lot left yet! 

A fancy home, why that’s a snap.
To get from room to room we’ll have to have a map.
Just to see this prize only close your eyes.
It doesn’t cost a dime to dream. 

We play roulette, we place our bets,
We lose a million bucks and cut out cigarettes {crêpes suzettes.}
Call the U.S. mind, what we need they’ll print
‘Cause it doesn’t cost a dime to dream.

We’ll have a maid who has a maid
Who has a maid to serve the maids lemonade.
We will spend our dough just like H-2-O.
It doesn’t cost a dime to dream. 

We will call at the president’s family residence,
Pay off the national debt.
And if we find the president slightly hesitant,
We’ll say we have a lot left yet! 

To keep our dog in perfect trim
We’ll have a butler and a footman just for him.
We will splash with vim in the social swim,
Be the finest fishes in the stream. 

I can see it now,
‘Course I don’t know how,
But it doesn’t cost a dime to dream.
It doesn’t cost a dime to dream.

IT DOESN'T COST A DIME TO DREAM As sung by Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell in the Paramount Pictures film The Lemon Drop Kid. Paramount Music Corporation, 1950. Music and Words by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans (Special Picture Release)