Chorus:
Mud, mud, glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
So follow me follow, down to the hollow
And there let me wallow in glorious mud
The fair hippopotama he aimed to entice
From her seat on that hilltop above
As she hadn't got a ma to give her advice
Came tiptoeing down to her love
Like thunder the forest re-echoed the sound
Of the song that they sang when they met
His inamorata adjusted her garter
And lifted her voice in duet

Now more hippopotami began to convene
On the banks of that river so wide
I wonder now what am I to say of the scene
That ensued by the Shalimar side
They dived all at once with an ear-splitting sposh
Then rose to the surface again
A regular army of hippopotami
All singing this haunting refrain

Chorus

(Extra verse:)
The amorous hippopotamus whose love song we know
Is now married and father of ten,
He murmurs, "God rot 'em!" as he watches them grow,
And he longs to be single again!
He'll gambol no more on the banks of the Nile,
Which Naser is flooding next spring,
With hippopotamas in silken pyjamas
No more will he teach them to sing...