The Carny Lyrics - Nick Cave & The Bad Seed

And no one saw the carny go 

The weeks flew by 

Until they moved on the show 

Leaving his caravan behind 

It was parked out on the south east ridge 

And as the company crossed the bridge 

With the first rain filling the bone dry river bed 

It shone, just so, upon the edge 

Away, away, we're sad, they say 

Dog boy, Atlas, Mandrake, the geeks, the hired hands 

There was not one among them 

That did not cast an eye behind 

In the hope that the carny would return to his own kind 

The carny left behind a horse, so skin and bone 

That he named Sorrow 

And it was a shallow unmarked grave 

That the old nag was laid 

In the then parched meadow 

And it was the dwarves who were 

Given the task of digging the ditch 

And laying the nag's carcass in the ground 

While boss Bellini, waved his smoking pistol around 

Saying "The nag is dead meat, we can't afford to carry dead weight" 

The whole company standing about 

Not making a sound 

And turning to dwarves perched on the enclosure gate 

The boss says "Bury this lump of crow bait" 

And then the rain came thundering down 

Everybody runnin' for their wagons 

Tyin' all the canvas flaps down 

The mangy cats crawlin' in ther cages 

The bird-girl flappin' and squawkin' around 

The whole valley reekin' of wet beast 

Wet beast and rotten hay 

Freak and brute creation 

All packed up and on their way 

The three dwarves peerin' from their wagon's hind 

Moses says to Noah, "We shoulda dug a deeper one" 

Their grizzled faces like dyin' moons 

Still dirty from the diggin' done 

And Charlie, the eldest of the three said 

"I guess the carny ain't gonna show" 

And they were silent for a spell 

Wishin' they had done a better job of burying Sorrow 

And the company passed from the valley 

Into a higher ground 

The rain beat on the ridge and on the meadow 

And on the mound 

Until nothing was left, nothing left at all 

Except the body of Sorrow 

That rose in time 

To float upon the surface of the eaten soil 

And a murder of crows did circle round 

First one, then the others flapping blackly down 

And the carny's van still sat upon the edge 

Tilting slowly as the firm ground turned to sludge 

And the rain it hammered down 

And the rain it hammered down 

And the rain it hammered down 

And the rain it hammered down 

And no one saw the carny go 

And no one saw the carny go 

And no one saw the carny go 

I say it's funny how things go