{"id":799,"date":"2012-01-10T00:49:16","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T04:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.wordpress.com\/?p=799"},"modified":"2013-06-17T18:38:42","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T18:38:42","slug":"the-day-the-circus-came-to-town-at-sea-01082012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=799","title":{"rendered":"The Day the Circus Came To Town \u2013 At Sea \u2013 [01\/08\/2012]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We get a lot of amazing guest entertainers on ships. I\u2019ve met, partied with, shared drinks with and visited ports with some pretty incredible people. But every so often, there comes a chance to shake the hand of someone you never quite expected.<\/p>\n

One of the things they do on the World Cruise is bring in at least two headliner entertainers. Two big names; one for the beginning of the cruise, and one for nearer to the end. Last year I stood in the lunch line-up behind Wayne Newton and thought very little of it…that was one of those moments when I realized my life was very strange indeed.<\/p>\n

Last night, the headliner was Melissa Manchester. A name that doesn\u2019t mean much to most people my age, but I grew up with music that was several generations behind my time, so I know her stuff, at least her big hits. One, in particular.<\/p>\n

One thing I don\u2019t care for about headliner acts is that they often open with their strongest number. They announce it and make a big deal out of it and then it\u2019s done and the rest of the show is kind of …meh. For one thing, Melissa Manchester puts on a great show from beginning to end, and for two, she doesn\u2019t ever mention her biggest hit, the one everyone\u2019s waiting for. Which is of course Don\u2019t Cry Out Loud<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Instead, she left it till last and said nothing about it, just nodded to the band who started the introduction \u2013 unchanged after all this time, there was the expected surge of applause, and then absolute silence.<\/p>\n

Baby cried the day the circus came to town
\n\u2018Cause she didn\u2019t want parades just passing by her
\nSo she painted on a smile and took up…with some clown
\nWhile she danced without a net upon the wire…<\/em><\/p>\n

Not too long ago I wrote about singing that song, it\u2019s one of the charts I use in my busking act, and it\u2019s my fall-back for when I need a pop-chart of an audition. But it\u2019s something more than that as well. It\u2019s been my theme song \u2013 or at least the sentiment behind it has \u2013 since I was very small. It\u2019s helped me get through some of the hardest days, some of the hardest times, in my life. Its track four on my \u201cArmoury\u201d playlist, the list of songs I listen to when I know I need to pull up all my guards and scale whatever wall is in front of me.<\/p>\n

When I was a teenager, I was asked to speak at my Grandmother\u2019s funeral. I stood there, fighting with a myriad of conflicting emotions, and stared out into an audience that I wasn\u2019t really sure I was ready to handle, and then down at the page in front of me bearing the words I was supposed to read. Less than half-way through the reading the words started to swim and I felt the tears start to come, and I remember very clearly thinking: \u201cNo! Shaughnessy no! Tears aren\u2019t in your script…\u201d<\/p>\n

I think it was shortly after that that I discovered the song, and it\u2019s been with me ever since.<\/p>\n

So last night, I stood in the dressing room, and shook the hand of the woman who had brought that song to life before I was even a sparkle in my mother\u2019s laugh..<\/p>\n

Thank you…thank you for the song that\u2019s helped saved my sanity so many times.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes, my job presents me with the most amazing , unexpected, gifts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We get a lot of amazing guest entertainers on ships. I\u2019ve met, partied with, shared drinks with and visited ports with some pretty incredible people. But every so often, there comes a chance to shake the hand of someone you … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-entertainers","category-grand-world-voyage-2012"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-cT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2206,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions\/2206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}