In 1902, father built a house at the crest   Of the Broadview Avenue hill in New Rochelle, New York   And it seemed for some years thereafter   That all the family's days would be warm and fair      The skies were blue and hazy   Rarely a storm, barely a chill   The afternoons were lazy   Everyone warm, everything still      And there was distant music   Simple and somehow sublime   Giving a nation, a new syncopation   The people called it ragtime      And there was distant music   Skipping a beat, singing a dream   A strange, insistent music   Putting out heat, picking up steam      A sound of distant thunder   Suddenly starting to climb   It was the music of something beginning   An era exploding, a century spinning      In riches and rags   And in rhythm and rhyme   The people called it ragtime   Ragtime, ragtime, ragtime