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 spend 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  
As 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 the penny whistles you can hear then blow  
If you lean your head out far enough  
From Desolation Row