One Night Only-John Wesley Harding

He got shafted in Bradford for his out of date routines up there And the trouble he ran into Brighton was more than his share He's been running for thirty years, he would have settled down But each town he appears in puts a red nose on the clown You can buy the old showbills and frame them, they're nearly antiques You can trip up on his big clown shoes as you're starting to speak He squirts the flower, hurts your hand, it'll always catch you And his tears are etched so deep that they might just be tattooed The one man circus is coming to town Put the banners up, take your trousers down Paint on a smile, wipe off the frown Heaven knows he won't hurt us The loose, the lovely and the lonely One night only He said 'I played Chaplin for Hitler in March 44 Been a black and white minstrel before that whole thing was outlawed And I've dragged it on every pier in every seaside town But there aren't any dances today, the pavilions have all been pulled down I came over straight after the war and they hijacked my name I waited for so many years but my wife never came I've been learning these lines every day since 1945 And I'll recite them everyday I wished I was alive' The one man circus is coming to town Get the dogs out, tear the posters down Paint go home on the walls til he is elsewhere bound Don't you know he could hurt us The loose, the lovely and the lonely One night only He's tripping over backwards, taking off his clothes And no-one helps him, everyone knows We laugh at the misfortune of others Everytime the glass empties, the lions they all get set free On a town full of unsuspecting tourists who scream when they're happy And the scarecrow's on probation just for making faces in a mirror The past put a hand on his shoulder and drowned him in tears Now he ushers and watched the movies where children don't age And the dancing horse stole all the keys and took charge of the stage And the freaks are on the razzmatazz, they're all fuelled on coke and gin And the cast-out's on the street and we've already let him in The one man circus