"Circle of Steel" as written by and Gordon Lightfoot....
Rows of lights in a circle of steel
Where you place your bets on a great big wheel
High windows flickerin' down through the snow
A time you know
Sights and sounds of the people goin' 'round
Everybody's in step with the season
A child is born to a welfare case
Where the rats run around like they own the place
The room is chilly, the building is old
That's how it goes
The doctor's found on his welfare round
And he comes and he leaves on the double
Deck The Halls was the song they played
In the flat next door where they shout all day
She tips her gin bottle back till it's gone
The child is strong
A week, a day, they will take it away
For they know about all her bad habits
Christmas dawns and the snow lets up
And the sun hits the handle of her heirloom cup
She hides her face in her hands for a while
Says look here child
Your father's pride was his means to provide
And he's servin' three years for that reason
Rows of lights in a circle of steel
Where you place your bets on a great big wheel
High windows flickerin' down through the snow
A time you know
Sights and sounds of the people goin' 'round
Everybody's in step with the season
Where you place your bets on a great big wheel
High windows flickerin' down through the snow
A time you know
Sights and sounds of the people goin' 'round
Everybody's in step with the season
A child is born to a welfare case
Where the rats run around like they own the place
The room is chilly, the building is old
That's how it goes
The doctor's found on his welfare round
And he comes and he leaves on the double
Deck The Halls was the song they played
In the flat next door where they shout all day
She tips her gin bottle back till it's gone
The child is strong
A week, a day, they will take it away
For they know about all her bad habits
Christmas dawns and the snow lets up
And the sun hits the handle of her heirloom cup
She hides her face in her hands for a while
Says look here child
Your father's pride was his means to provide
And he's servin' three years for that reason
Rows of lights in a circle of steel
Where you place your bets on a great big wheel
High windows flickerin' down through the snow
A time you know
Sights and sounds of the people goin' 'round
Everybody's in step with the season
Lyrics submitted by redundantman
"Circle of Steel" as written by Gordon Lightfoot
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Using a roulette wheel and a time for giving (Christmas) to show the plight of the poor. The father's in prison for stealing to provide. Jean Valjean! No one cares, no one gives a damn, and this is how the poor are treated year around. . .expecially when it's Christmas time!
Whatever else it is, this is an anti-Christmas carol. The juxtapositioning of invisible grief and public joy is purely intentional.
the juxtaposition of the holiday season - a joyful time spent with family against the lonely new mother who's counting the days until her child is taken from her - along with the wintery gray and snowy cold make this song very dreary and sad.
This is a sad story of somebody who has nothing at all (to the point of her only valued item being an "heirloom cup") losing the only thing she has left, her newborn child. The losing bet on the wheel of fortune.
As a new father, the "a week, a day they will take it away" rips my heart out every time. This song depresses the heck out of me.
And he’s servin’ three years for that reason." The father had to steal in order to provide for his family.
But in reality, Christmas can be one of the saddest times of the year for many. Songs like these are needed. They make me realize how good I have it and not to take what I have for granted.
The song like all poetry can mean many things to many people. but I think its simply about the loss of a child and the suffering of a family torn by gambling and greed. The sadness of a single mother raising a child in poverty and the juxtaposition of the holidays (Christmas) where family is so important shows us that often times we forget what's important. But it is also a tragedy when we learn the father is in jail for trying to provide for his child. leaving the mother to cope. Tragic songs like this are so powerful when they involve children because they remind us that often they are the innocent victims of society.
In the age of greed we live in today where so many are living in poverty while a minority seem to be making more and more money, its important for all of us to remember that the poor and our children are all of God's children and its up to the rich and all of us to care for them.
It is a thought provoking song – a brilliant observation and statement of contrast by Lightfoot. Truly, a possible view of Life is to see a circle of hard and cold steel with a selection of choices / perhaps gambles that all of us are confronted by. (Be always too soon, be never too fast, at the time when all bets must be laid! House You Live In) I feel the song drives home the fact that individuals, so often, are the product of choices made, in some cases, generations back. It is clear that bad bets have been placed but to hang the cumulative result of the blunders on one individual is foolish. I find it amusing how so much religion comfortably hangs its hat on the Christmas ritual yet we can observe the grass roots reality of Life vs so much religious thinking and action. I do feel that artistic folk like Lightfoot often have a capacity to make brilliant observations and then convert those thoughts into a form that effectively slaps the rest of us. The poor family is the result of bad bets from the past. I feel that the Christmas scene might well illustrate the same principle. Religious folk often feel they have the full deck but Lightfoot’s thoughts might clump everyone in the same gambler’s bucket. The song is a brilliant thought provoker!