| Lyrics: | The Man on the Flying Trapeze
Once I was happy, but now I'm forlorn,
Like an old
coat that is tattered and torn;
Left in this wide world to weep and to mourn,
Betrayed by
a maid in her teens.
Now this girl that I loved, she was handsome,
And I tried
all I knew her to please,
But I never could please her one quarter so well
As the
man on the flying trapeze.
cho: Oh, he floats through the air with the greatest of
ease,
This daring young man on the flying trapeze;
His actions are graceful, all
girls he does please,
My love he has purloined away.
He'd play with a miss like
a cat with a mouse,
His eyes would undress every girl in the house.
Perhaps he is better
described as a louse,
But the people they came just the same.
Oh, he'd smile from his
perch on the people below
And one day he smiled on my love.
She blew him a kiss
and she hollered, "Bravo!"
As he hung by his nose up above.
Oh, l wept and I
whimpered, I simpered for weeks,
While she spent her time with the circus's freaks.
The
tears were like hailstones that rolled down my cheeks,
Alas, and alack, and alacka!
I
went to this fellow, the blackguard, and said,
"I'll see that you get your deserts!"
He put up his thumb to his nose with a sneer,
He sneered once again, and said,
"Nertz!"
One night to his tent he invited her in,
He filled her with compliments,
kisses, and gin
And started her out on the road to ru-in,
Since then l have known no
repose.
But e'en now l loved her, I said, "Take my name!
I'll gladly forgive and
forget;"
She rustled her bustle without any shame,
Saying, "Well, maybe later,
not yet."
One night as usual l went to her home,
And found there her father and
mother alone,
I asked for my love, and it soon was made known,
To my horror, that she'd
run away.
Without any trousseau, she'd fled in the night
With him with the
greatest of ease,
From two stories high he'd lowered her down
To the ground on
his flying trapeze.
Some months after that l went into a hall,
And to my surprise I
found there on the wall,
A bill in red letters which did my heart gall,
That she was
appearing with him.
Oh, he'd taught her gymnastics,
And dressed her in
tights,
To help him to live at his ease,
He'd made her take on a masculine
name,
And now she goes on the trapeze.
(Last chorus:)
Oh, she floats
through the air with the greatest of ease,
You'd think her a man on the flying
trapeze,
She does all the work while he takes his ease,
And that's what's become
of my love.
Note: I have no idea where this version originated; it's the one
I
learned as a kid. A very similar one appears in Song Fest,
Dick and Beth Best. It's
certainly not the original. RG
@love @betrayal @circus
filename[
FLYTRAPZ
play.exe FLYTRAPZ
RG
===DOCUMENT BOUNDARY |
