Flying Trapeze, The

DESCRIPTION: "Once I was happy, but now I'm forlorn, Like an old coat that is tatter'd and torn." The singer's young girlfriend has left him for a trapeze artist. This man, who "flies through the air with the greatest of ease," induced her to run away and join his act
AUTHOR: George Leybourne and/or Alfred Lee
EARLIEST DATE: 1868 (sheet music published by Compton & Doan, St. Louis, and O. H. Ditson & Co, New York)
KEYWORDS: love abandonment sports betrayal
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,So)
REFERENCES (13 citations):
Jackson-PopularSongsOfNineteenthCenturyAmerica, pp. 69-72, "The Flying Trapeze" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph 748, "Once I Was Happy" (1 text plus a fragment, 1 tune)
Peters-FolkSongsOutOfWisconsin, pp. 137-138, "The Flying Trapeze" (1 text, 1 tune)
Spaeth-ReadEmAndWeep, pp. 63-65, "The Man on the Flying Trapeze" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax/Lomax-AmericanBalladsAndFolkSongs, pp. 338-340, "The Man on the Flying Trapeze" (1 text, 1 tune)
Newman/Devlin-NeverWithoutASong, pp. 271-272, "The Man on the Flying Trapeze" (1 text, consisting solely of verses to be sung at the end of the "regular" verse)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 270, "The Man On The Flying Trapeze" (1 text)
Fuld-BookOfWorldFamousMusic, p. 230, "The Flying Trapeze"
New-Comic-Songster, p. 6, "Flying Trapeze" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dime-Song-Book #21, pp. 48-49, "The Flying Trapeze" (1 text)
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, p. 286, "Man on the Flying Trapeze" (notes only)
DT, FLYTRAP2* (FLYTRAPZ*)
ADDITIONAL: Aline Waites & Robin Hunter, _The Illustrated Victorian Songbook_, Michael Joseph Ltd., 1984, pp. 124-127, "The Flying Trapeze!" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #5286
RECORDINGS:
Aaron Campbell's Mountaineers, "Man on the Flying Trapeze" (Chamption 45038, 91935)
Harry "Mac" McClintock, "The Man on the Flying Trapeze" (Victor 21567, 1928)
Walter O'Keefe, "The Man on the Flying Trapeze" (Victor 24172, 1932)
BROADSIDES:
NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(124a), "Flying Trapeze," Poet's Box (Glasgow), 1874
SAME TUNE:
The Man on the Flying Trapeze (Parachute Version) (File: WJL237C)
The Velocipede Beau (Dime-Song-Book #23, p. 18)
NOTES [126 words]: Credited to George Leybourne (for whom see the notes on "Champagne Charlie"), but this song, like that one, may be mostly the work of the "arranger," Alfred Lee. Or the tune may be borrowed; at least, Johann Strauss used it as an "English Folk Melody" in 1869.
Waites & Hunter note that it was a performer called "Leotard" (for whom leotards are named) who brought the trapeze to England. His performances inspired this song.
Although written in the nineteenth century, Edward Foote Gardner, Popular Songs of the Twentieth Century: Volume I -- Chart Detail & Encyclopedia 1900-1949, Paragon House, 2000, p. 408, estimates that this was the eighth most popular song in America in July 1934, (#1 for the year being Billy Hill's "The Old Spinning Wheel"). - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: RJ19069

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