that may possibly be called, "the little man that wasn't there"? i know this is random, but a dear woman in her seventies that i work with is trying to remember a poem like this. any ideas?

> a dear woman in her seventies that i work with is trying to remember a poem

I, too, am trying to remember it. Here goes:

As I was walking on the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away!

Hey, I have a different version. I wonder how many versions there are?

Yesterday upon a stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today
I wish that man would go away

to soma:

thank you for your response! that is the poem! but, i think that is all that my friend remembers too. i'll be sure to let you know if i hear anymore.

rose

and i wonder if there are anymore lines! thanks for your reply.

This appears in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (9th ed.) as having been written by Hughes Mearns (1875 - 1965), as reads:

As I was walking up the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish he'd stay away.

Lines written for The Psycho-ed, an amateur play, in Philadelphia, 1910 (set to music in 1939 as 'The Little Man Who Wasn't There')

It's possible that your elderly friend remembers the quotation from having seen and/or heard the musical version around the time it was being performed,in 1939 or thereabouts..

i've never seen your forum before; i arrived her via a google search while trying to find out for my grade six daughter the name of the author of this poem. thanks a lot for your great information!

This is how I heard it in a movie once:

Yesterday, I went up the stairs.
I met a man, who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish he'd go away.

/B

That version was used in the 2003 movie "Identity" with John Cusack and Ray Liota.

1939 news ...

BardWho Penned Man Who Wasn't There Revealed

As I was walking up the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish he'd stay away.

For a good many years, people have puckishly tossed off
those lines, with occasional variations.
There seems to be something fascinating about their
pleasant inanity, a good deal like the fascination which dwells
in Burgess' quote
I've never seen a purple cow,
I never hope to see one, etc.

It has been generally assumed that the creator of the
little man who wasn't there is anonymous.
It took the composition of a song whose lyric is based on
the jingle to bring to light its creator, surprised Prof. Hughes
Mearns of New York university.
Dr. Mearns holds the impressive title of chairman of the department
of creative education, but even now he has his lighter
moments.
The little professor conceived The Man Who Wasn't There'' in
1910. eight years after his graduation from Harvard. The
ditty was first intoned publicly in The Psyco-ed,
a play written for a group of theatrical amateurs. It so happens that
both Harold Adamson. who wrote a' complete lyric with the
non-existent man for the chorus, and Bernard Hanighen. who
wrote the music currently popular, are also Harvard men. They
originally thought the jingle was in public domain. Now they split
their royalties with Dr. Meams.

Sweet!

"Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish that man would go away."
Hughes Mearns (1875-1965)


In Identity, with John Cusack, it ended with:
I wish, I wish he'd go away....

Hey there Texas What do you say
are you whistling in the dark
just to scare the ghosts away?
Well I've got something followin' me
that I can't see
I think someone's put an awfull hex on me
A HEX ah Tex
I think your just a little perplexed
Well, if you'd court a load of what I saw last night
you'd have past the yanky clipper on it's maiden flight

Last night I saw apon the stair
a little man that wasn't there
he wasn't there again today
oh how I wish he'd go away
and then when I came home at three
the little man was waiting for me
but when I looked around the hall
I couldn't see him there at all

go away, go away, and don't come back any more
go away, go away, and hey, don't slam the door

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

leads off off into a classic Miller Jam
Tex was a singer in the Glen miller Orc.
Tex Bineeky ( spelling will be way out, sorry)

Tex Beneke

Thanks ilza, I was right, I was way out. I came across this version as a child on an extended player forty five record my folks had. The other tracks, I can't remember, they must have been love songs, no interest to a nine year old.
If the idea of 'little men that aren't there' fascinates anyone else (or am I the only one) Manfred Man put out a song in the sixties called "My name is Jack" on the flip side was a song called "There is a Man".

There is a man who sits in the corner of my room
no one else sees him
When I tell them
There is a man who sits in the corner of my room
they beat me.
Oh go away, you're not really there
and don't come back another day, pleeeeeaaase.

It had a short spoken piece in the middle about taking him home to use as a door stop. I've never seen this track on any of their albums.

amazing

There is a man ... was written by Tom McGuinness ( who played guitar)

He still does - my husband had one of his CDs for a recent birthday, and we quite often go and see the Manfreds on tour. Paul Jones manages to stay youthful looking and the others are all pretty aged, so it is a rather strange visual experience, but they sound great both acoustically and electronically (often the first set is electronic and the second acoustic). Don't recall them performing There is a man, though they often do very old stuff in among the new.

'As I was walking up the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there
again today.
I wish, I wish, he'd go away.

Is from a book or television series or something called the tomorrow people. I am pretty sure of it. I am sure that it was in there somewhere

Maybe "The Tomorrow People" did quote it in 70's but it seems to have been written in 1910. (see Peter Symonds' post above)