The Carny

Lyrics for The Carny

And no-one saw the Carny go, the weeks flew by Until they moved on the show, leaving his caravan behind It was parked out on the south east ridge And as the company crossed the bridge With the first rain filling the bone-dry river bed It shone, just so, upon the edge Away, away, we're sad to say Dog-boy, Atlas, Mandrake, the geeks, the hired hands There was not one among them that did not cast an eye behind In the hope that the Carny would return to his own kind The Carny left behind a horse so skin and bone that he'd named Sorrow And it was in a shallow, unmarked grave That that old nag was laid In the then parched meadow And it was the dwarves that were given the task of digging the ditch And laying the nag's carcass in the ground While boss Bellini, waving his smoking pistol around Saying "The nag was dead meat" "We can't afford to carry dead weight" While the whole company standing about, not making a sound And turning to dwarves perched on the enclosure gate The boss says "Bury this lump of crow bait" And the rain came hammering down Everybody running for their wagons Tying all the canvas flaps down The mangy cats growling in their cages The bird-girl flapping and squawking around The whole valley reeking of wet beast Wet beast and rotten, sodden hay Freak and brute creation Packed up and on their way The three dwarves peering from their wagon's hind Moses says to Noah "Shoulda dugga deepa one" Their grizzled faces like dying moons Still dirty from the digging done And Charlie the Atlas to the three said "I guess the Carny ain't gonna show" And they were silent for a spell Wishing they'd done a better job of burying Sorrow And the company passed from the valley Into a higher ground The rain beat on the ridge and on the meadow And on the mound Until nothing was left, nothing at all Except the body of Sorrow That rose in time To float upon the surface of the eaten soil And a murder of crows did circle 'round First one, then the others flapping blackly down And the Carny's van still sat upon the edge Tilting slowly as the firm ground turned to sludge And the rain it hammered down And the rain it hammered down And the rain it hammered down And the rain it hammered down And no-one saw the Carny go No-one saw the Carny go No-one saw the Carny go I say, it's funny how things go...