You Can't Do That There Here

"Image created by Random Rhymes by the Rhyme Bandit, with creative assistance from Brutus AI."

 

You can't do that there here

No, you can't do that there, here

Anywhere else you can do that there
But you can't do that there here

Whatever you have in mind

We don't do payment in kind

Here's hoping you don't mind

We'll keep the moment here refined

You can't do just as you like

No, you can't do just as you like

We keep rules short so take a hike

'cause you can't do just as you like

A mystery rhyme/song The wording was evidently in circulation by at least the 1930s: it appears in a 1937 Hansard discussion and in contemporary newspaper/archive material. [2] It was later used by P. G. Wodehouse in The Code of the Woosters as the comic expression “You-can’t-do-that-there-here.”