They're
Selling postcards
Of the hanging
They're painting
The passports brown
The beauty parlor
Is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes
The blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied
To the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad
They're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady
And I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

Cinderella
She seems so easy
"It takes one to know one"
She smiles
And puts her hands
In her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo
He's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says
" You're in the wrong place
My friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row

Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken
All her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan
He's dressing
He's getting ready
For the show
He's going
To the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row

Now Ophelia
She's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid

To her death
Is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes
Are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row

Einstein
Disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend
A jealous monk
He looked
So immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off
Sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you
Would not think
To look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing
The electric violin
On Desolation Row

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge
Of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps
The cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play
On penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean
Your head out far enough
From Desolation Row

Across the street
They've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready
For the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him
With self-confidence
After poisoning him with words

And the Phantom's
Shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here
If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being
Punished for going
To Desolation Row"

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see
That nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

Yes
I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row

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