Lyr Req: The Man Who Puffs the Big Cigar

Subject: Song about Suzie (Eliza Sings?)
From: GUEST,*Laura*
Date: 15 Aug 07 - 06:11 AM

hello - not been here for a looong time I know...
there's a song that ELiza often does at the beginning of her sets - the one about suzie, the girl in love with the man who flies the high trapeze etc..
I wondered if anyone knows who wrote it and/or what the lyrics are?
Also - i know it's not on any of eliza's cd's but has anyone else recorded it. Love it.

Subject: RE: Song about Suzie (Eliza Sings?)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 15 Aug 07 - 06:45 AM

I wonder if Eliza wrote it. She has a new CD of original stuff coming out next year...

I like it a lot, too - it's a bit Kurt Weill, dontcha think?

Subject: RE: Song about Suzie (Eliza Sings?)
From: GUEST,*Laura*
Date: 15 Aug 07 - 09:31 AM

I wondered that - but she's been doing it for a while. Doesn't mean she didn't write it of course... I just had a feeling that someone else did.

Subject: RE: Song about Suzie (Eliza Sings?)
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Aug 07 - 09:54 AM

Would it be Leon Rosselson's "The Man Who Puffs the Big Cigar"?
The first refrain goes:-
Susie, a stripper in a Soho club,
She works long hours but not for love
And when men see her body they go crazy.
But she just smiles in her heart,
And keeps herself a soul apart
And in her room at night she dreams alone.
For Suzie loves the man who flies the high trapeze,
He's flying now a thousand miles away.
But she knows one day she'll meet him as she always used to do.
By the statue of Eros, on a bright summer's day.

If so see Leon's "Perspectives" CD Fuse CFCD006 (1997)

Subject: RE: Song about Suzie (Eliza Sings?)
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Aug 07 - 09:57 AM

P.S. The words are also in his songbook "Bringing the News from Nowhere"

Subject: RE: Song about Suzie (Eliza Sings?)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 15 Aug 07 - 10:20 AM

And in That's Not The Way It's Got To Be published by Eric Winter at Sing Publications in 1974. then priced £1. The illustrations were by Katherine and David Bailey (Roy's children) and Ruth & Danielle Rosselson.

The verse is in A min and the chorus in A maj and quite hard to do. But worth it for:

Now all around Eros towers rise
And concrete slabs that black the sun
And carefully he calculates
The profit he expects to make . . .

and

Susie why are you looking so afraid
You'll know he'll keep the vow he made
The time has come and gone. it won't be easy
Tp find him in this concrete maze
Walls and railings bar the way
As if she's lost in space she wanders on
Looking for the man who flies the high trapeze . . .

Eliza has been doing it for quite a few years now, once I saw her do it with Billy Bragg at the RFH.

Subject: RE: Song about Suzie (Eliza Sings?)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 15 Aug 07 - 01:05 PM

That is indeed the one. It's a great song - just reading the lyrics made me go all shivery.

Subject: RE: Song about Suzie (Eliza Sings?)
From: GUEST,*Laura*
Date: 15 Aug 07 - 02:15 PM

that's it! Thanks!

Subject: RE: Song about Suzie (Eliza Sings?)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 12:44 PM

Eliza Carthy's recording of THE MAN WHO PUFFS THE BIG CIGAR is on the tribute album "And They All Sang RosselSongs."

Subject: Lyr Add: THE MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE (Leybourne)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 10:25 AM

This "modern" song is no doubt inspired by this sad and soulfull ditty from the 1930's:

THE MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE
(George Leybourne)

Walter O'Keefe - 1934
Don Redman & His Orch. - 1936
Also recorded by: Eddie Cantor; Burl Ives;
Cliff "Ukelele Ike" Edwards; Spike Jones;
Ian Whitcomb; Les Paul & Mary Ford.


Once I was happy, but now I'm forlorn
Like an old coat that is tattered and torn;
Left on this world to fret and to mourn,
Betrayed by a maid in her teens.

The girl that I loved she was handsome;
I tried all I knew her to please
But I could not please her one quarter so well
As the man upon the trapeze.

He'd fly through the air with the greatest of ease,
That daring young man on the flying trapeze.
His movements were graceful, all girls he could please
And my love he purloined away.

This young man by name was Signor Bona Slang,
Tall, big and handsome, as well made as Chang.
Where'er he appeared the hall loudly rang
With ovation from all people there.

He'd smile from the bar on the people below
And one night he smiled on my love.
She wink'd back at him and she shouted "Bravo,"
As he hung by his nose up above.

Her father and mother were both on my side
And very hard tried to make her my bride;
Her father he sighed, and her mother she cried,
To see her throw herself away.

'Twas all no avail, she went there every night,
And would throw him bouquets on the stage,
Which caused him to meet her; how he ran me down,
To tell you would take a whole page.

One night I as usual went to her dear home,
Found there her father and mother alone.
I asked for my love, and soon they made known,
To my horror that she'd run away.

She'd packed up her box and eloped in the night
With him, with the greatest of ease;
From two stories high he had lowered her down
To the ground on his flying trapeze.

Some months after this I went to the Hall;
Was greatly surprised to see on the wall
A bill in red letters, which did my heart gall,
That she was appearing with him.

He'd taught her gymnastics and dressed her in tights,
To help him live at his ease,
And made her assume a masculine name,
And now she goes on the trapeze.

She'd fly through the air with the greatest of ease,
You'd think her the young man on the flying trapeze.
Her movements were graceful, all girls she could please,
And that was the end of my love.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Man Who Puffs the Big Cigar
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 02:03 PM

Complete lyrics for THE MAN WHO PUFFS THE BIG CIGAR have been posted in another thread.