My Mother Was A Chinese Trapeze Artist Lyrics

My Mother Was A Chinese Trapeze Artist lyrics

My mother was a Chinese trapeze artist, pre-war in Paris

Smuggling bombs for the underground

And she met my father at a fete in Aix-en-Provence

He was disguised as a Russian cadet in the employ of the Axis



And there in the half-light , the provincial midnight

To a lone concertina, they drank in cantinas

And toasted to Edith Piaf and the fall of the Reich



My sister was born in a hovel in Burgundy

Left for the cattle but later was found by a communist

Who'd deserted his ranks to follow his dream

To start up a punk rock band in South Carolina



Well, I get letters sometimes they bought the plantation

She weeds the tobacco, he offends the nation

And they write, "Don't be a stranger, y'hear, sincerely, your sister"



So my parents had me to the disgust of the prostitutes

Bred in a brothel, surprisingly raised with tender care

'Til the money got tight and they bet me away

To a blind brigadier in a game of high stakes Canasta



But he made me a sailor on his brigadier ship fleet

I know every yardarm from main mast to jib sheet

But sometimes I long to be landlocked

And to work in a bakery