| Well I stand here before you in the circus court
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| With a most sincere appeal for your kindness and support
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| The consciousness of peril ever playing on my mind
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| Hoping against hope you will be lenient and kind
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| My name is Catman Findlay and I have eleven toes
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| I like to wear, admittedly, some slightly silly clothes:
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| These baggy pants, this purple hair, this stupid waxy nose
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| The grinning crocodiles of my disintegrating shoes
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| Well I would be law-abiding but my enemies are mean
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| Growing ever bolder in their comedy routines
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| If I do whip my assistant until her buttocks bleed
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| It’s not because I want to, but they force me to compete
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| Well as you know the circuses have fallen on hard times
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| People want to stay at home and swipe their telephones
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| And there’s no-one coming out to see a girl on a trapeze
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| Swinging from the sky supported only by her knees
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| But if I should do a knife act, and it should go awry
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| And the knife should slip into a breast and if the girl should die
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| People laugh like drains, they think it’s all part of the act
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| And laughs are hard to get, my lords, and that’s a circus fact
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| And I would be law-abiding but the competition’s mean
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| You’ve got to put some wick-wack in your comedy routines
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| We’ve reached the point where circus acts are turning into crimes
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| But life is hard, your lordships, and we keep up with the times |