I was there in the rain when the tent went up Seventeen, the trapeze or my mother The ringmaster smiled and shook my hand, "You will be magic," he said to me The strong man smiles and takes me in, And the tamer in sequins All is well when the crowd is breathless As I pursue the trapeze So step right up to the small town Big Top One way out of a small town's the Big Top The ringmaster winks from the funhouse door The smell of the animals fills the floor The next thing I know I'm in South Carolina, Or Cleveland, with the boy next door The ringmaster winks from the Funhouse door; and the flea-bitten horses The next thing that I know I'm in bed with the boy next door 'Cause I was there in the rain When the tent went up I know the routine When the tent goes up Always there, in the rain God damn the circus, God damn everything but the circus. Houston is a rotten dump. I don't mind New Orleans Or the holes in my fishnets, But I mind The rain when the tent coes up Seventeen, the trapeze. The ringmaster smiled and shook my hand, "You will be magic," he said to me I was there when the tent went up All the cages and trailers Seventeen, the trapeze Or my mother So step right up to the small town Big Top One way out of a small town's the Big Top So step right up to the small town Big Top One way out of a small town... So step right up to the small town Big Top One way out of a small town's the Big Top So step right up to the small town Big Top One way out of a small town's the Big Top, Big Top, Big Top God damn the circus, God damn everything but the circus