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Sarasota Girls - © 2018 Jim Bickerstaff & Terry Feller
Terry Feller – Drums
Bob Wray – Bass
Clayton Ivey – Grand Piano & B3
Pat Severs – Acoustic Guitar
Brad Guin - Tenor and Baritone Saxophone
Vinnie Ciesielski - Trumpet and Flugelhorn
Savannah Bickerstaff, Landis Yarovyy & Lyubov Yarova – Background Vocals & Midnight Merlot Choir
Jim Bickerstaff – Vocals
I never realized that Sarasota was the long-time home of Ringling Bros Circus until last year. I guess everybody knew that but me, but it got my attention, and I started doing some research on the people that made the circus come alive, something more than a collection of animals and sideshows. The characters in this song are a mash-up of several attractions that may or may not have been contemporaneous, but one iconic mainstay of the big top seems to have been the fabulous showgirls, larger than life and living full throttle during a period of time when most women lived reserved and conservative lifestyles. While the story here may be a product of imagination, the history presented is accurate based on posted tour dates, photographs, and news accounts. Woven around Ringling's New Orleans dates in 1939, Sarasota Girls is a tale of a restless kid running away to join the Greatest Show on Earth.
Lyrics
V1
Annie grew up in Baton Rouge, seventeen years in a state of unrest
Her momma was a flapper down in New Orleans, woke up one morning, baby on her breast
A no-show daddy and bitter mom, made little Annie want to see the world.
When the circus rolled through in ‘39, Annie jumped a train with the Sarasota girls
Eighty-two miles till they hit the Big Easy, whole train buzzing about a two-night stand.
Siamese twins and a bearded lady, lions and tigers and a three-legged man.
The big top jumped right out of the bayou, signs went up, flags unfurled
Annie found a job in the dressing car, tying up corsets on the Sarasota girls.
CH
Sarasota girls ran wild and free, had all their pictures on the big marquis
Living every minute like it might be the end of the world
All the boys came around in their Cadillac cars, waxed mustaches and Havana cigars
Champagne, caviar, diamonds and pearls, ain’t nothing but the best for the Sarasota girls.
V2
Now the show was a hit and the crowd went wild, dropped the curtains and the lights went down
Annie dressed up like her mama used to do and the Sarasota girls headed out on the town.
Down in the French Quarter, 2 a.m. … in a little back alley off Esplanade
Smokey little dive where there's only one rule, anything goes on the Vieux Carré
One old Cajun had too much to drink and started into picking on the three-legged man
Spilled his drink on the bearded lady, and that’s pretty much when the fight began
A pistol went flying out of somebody’s pocket, Annie scooped it up off the barroom floor
The drunk whipped out a switchblade knife, Annie shot twice, didn’t need any more
CH
V3 (breakdown)
Well the bar went quiet as a church on Monday, till somebody hollered out “Drinks on Me”
Somebody else dropped a nickel in the jukebox, Little Brown Jug, old number three
The girls dragged the dead man out to a taxi, back to the circus by the dawn’s first light
And nobody said what they did with the body, but the lions wouldn’t eat for the next three nights
Annie kept the gun for a souvenir, just might need it for a rainy day
She picked up an overnight reputation, “that girl say what she mean and mean what she say”
The Sarasota girls taught her how to dance, traveled with the circus all over the world
And every now and then you can hear how little Annie went from runaway child to a Sarasota girl
CH