Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
1723
AUTHOR:
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)
QUOTATION:
Oh, it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy, go away’; But it’s ‘Thank you, Mister Atkins’, when the band begins to play— The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play, Oh, it’s ‘Thank you, Mister Atkins,’ when the band begins to play.
ATTRIBUTION:
RUDYARD KIPLING, “Tommy,” stanza 1, chorus, The Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling: Departmental Ditties and Barrack-Room Ballads, vol. 25, p. 168 (1941, reprinted 1970).
