Mark Erelli - Hartfordtown 1944 lyrics

It was a dry and dusty summer day When that wagon train pulled in Just three hours 'til the matinee Was scheduled to begin As the razorbacks unloaded the flats A crowd did gather to see The elephants tow the wagons back To that empty lot on Barbour Street And the canvasmen they dug right in 'Til on that spot where nothing had been You could see the bigtop from miles around When the circus came to Hartfordtown The circus it was front page news Back in Nineteen Forty-Four Everyone was grateful for any excuse To forget about the war The sun beat down on the menagerie In the cages the animals paced There was orangeade and cotton candy And a smile on every kid Each mother and father, each boy and girl They couldn't wait to see the greatest show in the world You could barely hear the orchestra, they cheered so loud When the circus came to Hartfordtown There were polar bears and panther cats With great big fangs and claws And the lions did a balancing act To jubilant applause Then a spotlight played on a platform set So high up in the air That everybody held their breath And they prayed a silent prayer All eyes were glued to the man on the wire So nobody knew when the tent caught fire Too slowly it dawned on the sold-out crowd When the circus came to Hartfordtown The fire drew air and began to climb The audience jumped from their seats There was a stampede for the exit sign And some fainted from the heat There were heroes who did their best to help The children escape the flames And the others who managed to save themselves They survived but were never the same And some still remember how the animals cried But there weren't any animals inside Over 100 people trapped as the tent burned down When the circus came to Hartfordtown As a boy I lived on Barbour Street Four blocks from that circus show And I begged my parents, I got down on my knees But they would not let me go For they had grounded me, two weeks straight Now I can But I know the first time I ever prayed Was when I saw that black smoke in the sky And the war it was over in a year I guess But the people in my town didn It still breaks our hearts to remember now When the circus came to Hartfordtown