Audiogrammes

Sad as a painted clown, a beautiful boy in an ugly town
but when your circus closes down don’t walk away from me
you’ve been asleep too long, the birds are bruises in the dawn
the pounds of flesh between us stretch as far as you can see





But all you ever do is walk away and I know if you’d only go slow
you could see what it means to be making the scene with me
But all you ever do is walk away and I think if you tried
you could find a little time
for the life I can see in your eyes, don’t go. Don’t go.

Sometimes you just explode and no one alive can break your code
You have a language of your own, an unconnected road
The people you called your friends, the places you won’t go again
The decades lost in finding them, you’ll have to let them go.


Stephin Merritt is the genius behind the Magnetic Fields. He’s an amazing songwriter and he’s got at least one other clown-related lyric.





I wandered in these big blue shoes,
till we had nothing left to lose.
Nobody wants you when you’re a circus clown.
I should know.
I looked all over town.

One last time.
I looked all over town.


A great songwriter from another era also talked about clowns





Now if there’s a smile on my face
it’s only there tryin’ to fool the public
but when it comes down to foolin’ you;
Now honey, that’s quite a different subject

Just like Pagliacci did
I try to keep my sadness hid
Smiling in the public eye
But in my lonely room I cry
the tears of a clown
when there’s no one around


Clowns are occasionally funny, fundamentally sad but they can be scary too. Remember Stephen King’s It and Pennywise the creepy clown played by Tim Curry?





Since we’re talking about freaky clowns, let’s go to David Lynch‘s world for a while.





A candy-colored clown they call the sandman
Tiptoes to my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper
“Go to sleep. Everything is all right.”


In 2011, years after using Roy Orbison’s In dreams in Blue Velvet, David Lynch released his first solo album Crazy Clown Time (That’s if you don’t count BlueBob…)





They all run around
Oh, it’s crazy clown time!
It was really fun!


There’s also a weird video he released for his first single from the album. I don’t know if you can stream it from here since you need to sign in.





I know you got to go
Seen in comin’ baby
Just as plain as a day
Seen it comin’ at me
No way you can’t stay