1894
The Circus Band
Composed by 
Charles Ives
Charles Ives Text by Charles Ives
Charles Ives Five Street Songs Song Collection
“The Circus Band” is the last in a set of five songs that Ives called Five Street Songs, written while the composer was a student at Yale University. This stirring march in “quickstep time” is primarily tonal, with moments of unexpected rhythmic twists and syncopations, as well as a sprinkling of “wrong notes” in homage to the amateur town band.
Audio
“The Circus Band” (from “Five Street Songs”)
Thomas Hampson (baritone) & Craig Rutenberg (piano)3:11
Text
The Circus Band
by Charles Ives
All summer long we boys
dreamed ’bout circus joys!
Down Main Street comes the band,
Oh! “Ain’t it a grand and glorious noise!
Horses are prancing, knights advancing
Helmets gleaming, pennants streaming,
Cleopatra’s on her throne!
That golden hair is all her own.
Where is the lady all in pink?
Last year she waved to me I think,
Can she have died? Can! that! rot!
She is passing but she sees me not.
Related Information
The Hampsong Foundation
hampsongfoundation.org/resource/charles-ives/#circusInstant Encore
instantencore.com/music/details.aspx?PId=5041048Sheet Music