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By The Stone Elephants (Hagenbeck​-​Wallace Circus Train Wreck)

from The Droimlins by The Droimlins

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about

(Dyer)

lyrics

Once a year in Woodlawn Cemetery
when August in bright green is dressed,
clowns from the world over gather
in a place that they call Showmen's Rest.

Was June 22, 1918
4 am and the circus asleep;
the last of two trains, filled with faces and names
which that dark stretch of railroad still keeps;

(Chorus)
The markers read "Baldy' and "Smiley"
and "Unknown Female 43";
by the stone elephants, lay down a while
your souls
from the sawdust ring are free.

From Illinois they were headed out to Hammond.
from there moving onto Monroe.
From nowhere a troop train came screaming
down Michigan Central Railroad;

One Alonzo K. Sargent had been sleeping
missed the warnings, red signals and flares;
desperate, the flagmen all called out in vain
that the train had been stopped for repairs.

The markers read "Baldy" and "Smiley"
and "Unknown Female 43";
by the stone elephants, lay down a while
your souls
from the sawdust ring are free.

Most were dead inside of thirty seconds
in a mass of crushed steel, wood and wire.
Some who'd survived were then burned alive
when the kerosene lanterns caught fire.

Joe Coyle convulsing and crying;
his wife and two boys crushed to death;
in the end only two shows were cancelled
but still today passers-by hold their breath.

As the second train held their grim roll-cal
black smoke still hung thick at the scene;
in Showmen's Rest yearly they gather
when August is dressed in bright green;

The markers read "Baldy" and "Smiley"
and "Unknown Female 43";
by the stone elephants, lay down a while
your souls
from the sawdust ring are free.
l

credits

from The Droimlins, released April 20, 2016
(Eddy Dyer)

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about

The Droimlins Lowell, Massachusetts

Multi-instrumentalist Jimmy Otis and songsmith Eddy Dyer, both formerly of The Reagan Babies have again joined forces to create The Droimlins, Lowell's newest Celtic Gypsy Punk outfit; regaling you with songs of Drinking And Rebellion ~

If you love The Pogues, Balkan Beatbox, The Wolfe Tones, Tom Waits and The Dubliners, this is an evening you'll not want to miss!
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