10 cool songs about clowns
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Album:Walk Right Back: The Everly Brothers On Warner Bros. 1960 to '69
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The greatest song that mentions clowns is "Like A Rolling Stone," but for the purpose of this arbitrary list, let's stick to songs that have a more consistently clownish lyrical thread.1. The Tears of a Clown - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles or The (English) BeatSmokey takes his I-seem-like-that-but-I'm-really-this thematic construction and weds it to a calliope-ish arrangement, and voila! The Beat's ska-take on it might be even better.2. Clown Shoes - Johnny BurnetteYou have never heard anything quite so bizarre: Johnny gets a gift-box from his girlfriend. Oh, goody! A present! He opens it up, and inside is a pair of...clown shoes. As gag gifts go, pretty cruel. Does he throw them in her face? Nope. He puts them on.3. Goodbye Cruel World - James DarrenJimmy is dumped by a mean girlfriend, and decides to run away to join the circus and be a "broken-hearted clown." Let them shoot him out of a cannon...he could care less. He's in a really bad mood.4. Cathy's Clown - The Everly BrothersMore humiliation, as everybody points at poor Everly Brother and mocks him for being at the beck and call of Cathy. The song pretends to be defiant and fed-up, but you and I know that he's not going anywhere.5. Send In The Clowns - Frank SinatraLet's say Sinatra for the sake of this list, but hundreds of singers have sung this Sondheim song. Many have botched it (Barbra, take a bow), but Frank's vocal-and-piano duet nails it pretty good.6. Be A Clown - Chris ConnorJust for the line "Jack, you'll never lack if you can quack like a duck." Not Cole Porter's best internal rhyme, but nifty all the same.7. Death of a Clown - The KinksA boozy, wobbly Kinks number warbled by brother Dave, and a #1 U.K. hit.8. Everybody's Clown - Skeeter Davis and NRBQYou should go get this album, like, now. Their jazz-waltz version of "Someday My Prince Will Come" is charming as all get-out, and the rest of the album is a delight.9. Laughin' and Clownin' - Sam CookeWhy are almost all clown songs depressing? Maybe because clowns (except maybe Krusty) are so creepy. Anyway, Cooke at his most bluesy, which means as good as singing gets in the known universe.10. Ha! Ha! Said The Clown - The YardbirdsThere's also a version by Manfred Mann, post-Paul Jones. I prefer this one by a slight margin.
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