Tight Rope

Album

Carney

Label

Shelter

Genre

Piano Rock

Media Type

45s

Duration

2:59

Composer(s)

Leon Russell

Entered Chart

Aug 26, 1972

Peak Date

Oct 21, 1972

Released

August 1972

Recorded

Unknown

Catalog #

Shelter 7325

B-Side

This Masquerade

"Tight Rope" is the debut 1972 hit single by singer-songwriter Leon Russell. It was the lead track on his LP, Carney. The song reached number 11 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and number 10 on the Cash Box Top 100. In Canada, it reached number five. This song is a circus metaphor about clinging to life while being on a high wire. In the instrumental section, this song quotes a couple of times, a slow version of the "Entrance of the Gladiators" March, played in a mysterious descending scale, before Russell finishes the last half of the bridge section. The B-side of 45 RPM for "Tight Rope" was "This Masquerade", also penned by Russell, which became a Top 10 hit for George Benson in 1976.

I'm up on the tight wire
One side's ice and one is fire
It's a circus game with you and me
I'm up on the tight rope
One side's hate and one is hope
But the top-hat on my head is all you see

And the wire seems to be
The only place for me
A comedy of errors and I'm falling
Like a rubber-neck giraffe
You look into my past
Well maybe you're just too blind to see

I'm up in the spotlight
Oh does it feel right
Oh altitude seems to get to me
I'm up on the tight wire
Flanked by life and the funeral pyre
Putting on a show for you to see

Like a rubber-neck giraffe
You look into my past
Well maybe you're just too blind to see

I'm up in the spotlight
Oh does it feel right
Oh the altitude really gets to get to me
I'm up on the tight wire
Flanked by life and the funeral pyre
Putting on a show for you to see