In honor of the Winter Olympics taking place in Canada, Way Out Wednesday (sort of) salutes our buddies up north (or whatever direction gets you to Canada) with this album of circus songs published by Peter Rabbit Records in Toronto. Let’s dive in, shall we?
We start things off with an introduction from the Ringmaster, who sort of narrates between the songs. The circus parade has come into town, so he’s here to sing about the Greatest I mean Biggest Show on Earth.
Leading the parade is Annette the Majorette, who wants everybody to scream and glorify her name. Annette is certainly not suffering from low self-esteem, is she? Then a men’s chorus start to do this very thing. You’re not helping, guys! FUN FACT: Annette’s voice is so piercing that on the circus’s off-season she hires herself out as an air raid siren!
As with many children’s records, we inevitably have an adult embarrassing themselves by trying to sound like a kid. This one makes it doubly annoying by not pronouncing her r’s. Isn’t that adowable? She tells the Ringmaster that she’s lost her Daddy, whereupon the Ringmaster comforts her by pointing out that she got the brass ring while riding the merry-go-round, which earns her a free ride. For those of you too young to remember, over by the side of the merry-go-round was a place where you could try to reach out and grab a brass ring. I assume they stopped this because of the usual injuries one would expect from reaching out while riding a moving fake horse.
I Got the Brass Ring on the Merry-Go-Round
She does catch up with her Daddy later on in the record, but not before the Ringmaster has this observation regarding the funniest cage at the circus:
Well, that’s nice….WHHAAAAAA??????
Finally, we have a guy singing about how he got two passes for the circus from ”the funny little clown,” and all he had to do for the clown was ”run an errand or two or three.” Something about this makes me feel very uncomfortable, especially when he reveals that he’s saving the second ticket for his mother. Hopefully that wasn’t at the clown’s request as well!
I’ve Got Two Passes for the Circus
Anyway, there are some other fun songs on here as well, and you can hear the whole thing here. See you next time!
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