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 Into <br />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 Desol
