Desolation Row

Lyrics:

• 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 fortune-telling 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 pennywhistles
• 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 doorknob 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