They’re selling postcards of the hanging<br />They’re painting the passports brown<br />The beauty parlor is filled with sailors<br />The circus is in town<br />Here comes the blind commissioner<br />They’ve got him in a trance<br />One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker<br />The other is in his pants<br />And the riot squad they’re restless<br />They need somewhere to go<br />As Lady and I look out tonight<br />From Desolation Row<br /><br />Cinderella, she seems so easy<br />“It takes one to know one,” she smiles<br />And puts her hands in her back pockets<br />Bette Davis style<br />And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning<br />“You Belong to Me I Believe”<br />And someone says, “You’re in the wrong place my friend<br />You better leave”<br />And the only sound that’s left<br />After the ambulances go<br />Is Cinderella sweeping up<br />On Desolation Row<br /><br />Now the moon is almost hidden<br />The stars are beginning to hide<br />The fortune-telling lady<br />Has even taken all her things inside<br />All except for Cain and Abel<br />And the hunchback of Notre Dame<br />Everybody is making love<br />Or else expecting rain<br />And the Good Samaritan, he’s dressing<br />He’s getting ready for the show<br />He’s going to the carnival tonight<br />On Desolation Row<br /><br />Now Ophelia, she’s ’neath the window<br />For her I feel so afraid<br />On her twenty-second birthday<br />She already is an old maid<br />To her, death is quite romantic<br />She wears an iron vest<br />Her profession’s her religion<br />Her sin is her lifelessness<br />And though her eyes are fixed upon<br />Noah’s great rainbow<br />She spends her time peeking<br />Into Desolation Row<br /><br />Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood<br />With his memories in a trunk<br />Passed this way an hour ago<br />With his friend, a jealous monk<br />He looked so immaculately frightful<br />As he bummed a cigarette<br />Then he went off sniffing drainpipes<br />And reciting the alphabet<br />Now you would not think to look at him<br />But he was famous long ago<br />For playing the electric violin<br />On Desolation Row<br /><br />Dr. Filth, he keeps his world<br />Inside of a leather cup<br />But all his sexless patients<br />They’re trying to blow it up<br />Now his nurse, some local loser<br />She’s in charge of the cyanide hole<br />And she also keeps the cards that read<br />“Have Mercy on His Soul”<br />They all play on pennywhistles<br />You can hear them blow<br />If you lean your head out far enough<br />From Desolation Row<br /><br />Across the street they’ve nailed the curtains<br />They’re getting ready for the feast<br />The Phantom of the Opera<br />A perfect image of a priest<br />They’re spoonfeeding Casanova<br />To get him to feel more assured<br />Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence<br />After poisoning him with words<br />And the Phantom’s shouting to skinny girls<br />“Get Outa Here If You Don’t Know<br />Casanova is just being punished for going<br />To Desolation Row”<br /><br />Now at midnight all the agents<br />And the superhuman crew<br />Come out and round up everyone<br />That knows more than they do<br />Then they bring them to the factory<br />Where the heart-attack machine<br />Is strapped across their shoulders<br />And then the kerosene<br />Is brought down from the castles<br />By insurance men who go<br />Check to see that nobody is escaping<br />To Desolation Row<br /><br />Praise be to Nero’s Neptune<br />The Titanic sails at dawn<br />And everybody’s shouting<br />
