Desolation Row

They're selling postcards of the hanging. They're painting the passports brown. The beauty parlour's filled with sailors. The circus is in town. Here comes the blind commissoner. They've got him in a trance. One hand's tied to the tightrope walker. The other is in his pants. And the riot squad they're restless They need some where to go. As lady and I look out tonight On Desolation Row. Cinderella she seem so easy. It takes on to know one she smiles. Then puts her hand in her back pocket, Betty davis style. Then in comes Romeo he's moaning. You Belong to me I believe. And someone says your 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 already taken all her things inside. All except for Cane and Able And the Hunch Back of Notre Dame Everyone is making love Or else expecting rain And the good samaritan he's dressing He's gettin ready for the show. He's going to the carinval 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. Einstien 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 frightful As he bummed a cigarette Then went off sniffing drain pipes And reciting the alphabet. No you would not think to look at him That he was famous long ago For playing electric violin On Desolation Row. Doctor filth he keeps his word Inside a leather cup But all his sexless patients Are trying to blow it up. Now his nurse a local looser She's in charge of the cyanaide hole And she also keeps the cards that read Have mercy on his soul. They all play on penny whistles 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 gettin ready for the feast The phantom of the opera A perfect image of a priest They're spoon feedin Casonova To get him to feel more assured Then they'll killed him with self confidence After poisoning him with words And the phantom shouting to skinning girls Get outta her don't you know Casanova is just being punished For going to Desolation Row. Now at midnight all the agents And the superhuman crews Round up everyone That knows more than they do. Then they bring them to the factory Where the heart attack machines Is strapped across their shoulders And then the kerosene Is brought down from the castles By insurance men that go Check to see that nobody is escaping To Desolation Row Praise be to Nero's Neptune The Titanic sails at dawn And everybody shouting Which side are you on And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot Fighting in the captains tower While calypso signers 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 door knob broke. When you asked me how I was Was that some kind of joke. All those 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.