Desolation Row

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 tightrope 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 pocket

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'd 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's 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

Ophelia, she's 'neath the window

For her I feel so afraid

On her 22nd birthday

She already is an old maid

To her, death is quite romantic

She wears an ironed 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

Now, he looked so immaculately frightful

As he bummed a cigarette

Then he went off sniffing drainpipes

And reciting the alphabet

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 are 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 whistle, 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

In a perfect image of a priest

They are spoon-feeding Casanova

To get him to feel more assured

Then they'll kill him with self-confidence

After poisoning him with words

And the phantom shouting to skinny girls

"Get out of here if you don't know"

Casanova is just being punished for going to Desolation Row

At midnight, all the agents

And the superhuman crew

Come out and round up everyone

That knows more than they do

And they bring them to the factory

Where their 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

Everybody's shouting

"Which side are you on?"

And Ezra Pound and T.S. Elliot

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 me how I was doing

Was that some kind of joke?

All these people that you mentioned

Yes, I know them, they are 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