Songfacts®:

• Pronounced "Get A big Top 'At," this slightly risqué number is a sort of tribute song, from the 1975 animated short film Great also known as Great (Isambard Kingdom Brunel). Directed by Australian-born Bob Godfrey, the film won the 1976 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
  
  Most photographs of Brunel show him wearing a big top hat, often with a cigar in his mouth; the hat may have had something to do with his height; although he is rightly considered one of the giants of British history, Brunel stood only five feet five inches tall.
  
  Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-59) was the son of the engineer Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, and followed in his father's footsteps. Among other things he built the Clifton Suspension Bridge which spans the River Avon in Bristol. In 2002, a BBC poll placed him at number 2 of the 100 Greatest Britons, ahead of Cliff Richard in 56^th place and George Harrison in 62^nd but unfortunately behind Sir Winston Churchill at number 1.
• Like the rest of the Great soundtrack, "Get A Big Top Hat" was written by jingle writer/songwriter and composer Jonathan Hodge, who also performed it sounding like a poor man's John Lennon. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2