The Residents - The Great Circus Train Wreck Of 1918

THE GREAT CIRCUS TRAIN WRECK OF 1918 Lon Moore: I was in the coach When I heard a hellish crash. I fell out of my bunk and My left cheekbone was bashed In a screaming flash That coach broke right in two Like a pickaxe pokin' though A cryin' kid's balloon. That coach disintegrated  Tossin' me up in the air Comin' down upon the rubble In my underwear. A coat came sailing over An' it landed on my back, I pulled it up around me As I sat down to the tracks. Today we tried to do a show, The place was mostly filled But all of us ain't here, so Shit ain't workin' well. The lady that used to train Them lions over there She was burnt to death, Now her husband he don't care. Me, I'm just a clown Actin' like a loon, Then breakin' down in tears In my dressing room. Callin' out the names Of Eddie Alan Kern And Sonny Boy DeLoach Who roasted like some burned Up bacon in that coach. Thank God for Emil Schwem He pulled me from the wreck, I done been followin' him Around and sayin' THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Then there was the funeral The day after the show, Where fifty-six performers, Friends, and Circus Joes Was buried in a graveyard Known as Showmen's Rest, Built by Buffalo Bill and  Circled by no less than  Elephants of solid stone Standin' in the snow Lookin' at the sky above and Guarding the ground below. The hole was thirty-five feet Long and twenty-four feet wide And as they laid the caskets in it, Everybody cried... The Entrance of the Gladiators Echoed in the space, While I perplexed and wondered some About God's Golden Grace.