[00:08.96]They’re selling postcards of the hanging
[00:13.24]They’re painting the passports brown
[00:18.28]The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
[00:23.12]The circus is in town
[00:28.05]Here comes the blind commissioner
[00:31.74]They’ve got him in a trance
[00:36.28]One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
[00:41.00]The other is in his pants
[00:45.19]And the riot squad they’re restless
[00:49.83]They need somewhere to go
[00:54.21]As Lady and I look out tonight
[00:58.55]From Desolation Row
[01:02.99]
[01:07.87]Cinderella, she seems so easy
[01:12.27]“It takes one to know one,” she smiles
[01:16.70]And puts her hands in her back pockets
[01:21.53]Bette Davis style
[01:25.82]And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning
[01:29.86]“You Belong to Me I Believe”
[01:34.29]And someone says, “You’re in the wrong place my friend
[01:39.78]You better leave”
[01:43.51]And the only sound that’s left
[01:47.70]After the ambulances go
[01:52.59]Is Cinderella sweeping up
[01:56.48]On Desolation Row
[02:03.00]
[02:05.39]Now the moon is almost hidden
[02:09.93]The stars are beginning to hide
[02:14.50]The fortune-telling lady
[02:18.69]Has even taken all her things inside
[02:23.23]All except for Cain and Abel
[02:27.06]And the hunchback of Notre Dame
[02:32.00]Everybody is making love
[02:36.18]Or else expecting rain
[02:40.82]And the Good Samaritan, he’s dressing
[02:43.62]He’s getting ready for the show
[02:49.50]He’s going to the carnival tonight
[02:53.83]On Desolation Row
[02:59.37]
[03:02.71]Now Ophelia, she’s ’neath the window
[03:07.25]For her I feel so afraid
[03:11.44]On her twenty-second birthday
[03:15.67]She already is an old maid
[03:20.15]To her, death is quite romantic
[03:24.69]She wears an iron vest
[03:28.88]Her profession’s her religion
[03:33.27]Her sin is her lifelessness
[03:38.15]And though her eyes are fixed upon
[03:42.59]Noah’s great rainbow
[03:46.87]She spends her time peeking
[03:50.46]Into Desolation Row
[03:55.10]
[03:59.98]Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
[04:04.07]With his memories in a trunk
[04:08.66]Passed this way an hour ago
[04:12.65]With his friend, a jealous monk
[04:16.89]He looked so immaculately frightful
[04:21.22]As he bummed a cigarette
[04:25.56]Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
[04:29.70]And reciting the alphabet
[04:34.72]Now you would not think to look at him
[04:38.56]But he was famous long ago
[04:43.24]For playing the electric violin
[04:47.23]On Desolation Row
[04:50.98]
[04:56.06]Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
[05:00.40]Inside of a leather cup
[05:05.19]But all his ***less patients
[05:09.08]They’re trying to blow it up
[05:13.77]Now his nurse, some local loser
[05:17.85]She’s in charge of the cyanide hole
[05:22.49]And she also keeps the cards that read
[05:26.67]“Have Mercy on His Soul”
[05:31.84]They all play on pennywhistles
[05:35.93]You can hear them blow
[05:40.03]If you lean your head out far enough
[05:44.16]From Desolation Row
[05:48.49]
[05:52.73]Across the street they’ve nailed the curtains
[05:57.11]They’re getting ready for the feast
[06:01.39]The Phantom of the Opera
[06:05.82]A perfect image of a priest
[06:10.16]They’re spoonfeeding Casanova
[06:14.75]To get him to feel more assured
[06:18.84]Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence
[06:23.13]After poisoning him with words
[06:28.77]And the Phantom’s shouting to skinny girls
[06:33.25]“Get Outa Here If You Don’t Know
[06:37.49]Casanova is just being punished for going
[06:41.92]To Desolation Row”
[06:48.43]
[06:50.57]Now at midnight all the agents
[06:54.86]And the superhuman crew
[06:59.30]Come out and round up everyone
[07:03.39]That knows more than they do
[07:07.67]Then they bring them to the factory
[07:12.01]Where the heart-attack machine
[07:16.35]Is strapped across their shoulders
[07:20.79]And then the kerosene
[07:25.08]Is brought down from the castles
[07:29.02]By insurance men who go
[07:33.50]Check to see that nobody is escaping
[07:37.29]To Desolation Row
[07:42.84]
[07:44.73]Praise be to Nero’s Neptune
[07:48.71]The Titanic sails at dawn
[07:53.30]And everybody’s shouting
[07:57.84]“Which Side Are You On?”
[08:01.77]And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
[08:06.70]Fighting in the captain’s tower
[08:10.89]While calypso singers laugh at them
[08:14.54]And fishermen hold flowers
[08:19.47]Between the windows of the sea
[08:23.41]Where lovely mermaids flow
[08:28.00]And nobody has to think too much
[08:31.95]About Desolation Row
[08:35.78]
[09:31.37]Yes, I received your letter yesterday
[09:35.51](About the time the doorknob broke)
[09:39.64]When you asked how I was doing
[09:44.37]Was that some kind of joke?
[09:48.37]All these people that you mention
[09:52.51]Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame
[09:56.79]I had to rearrange their faces
[10:00.93]And give them all another name
[10:05.96]Right now I can’t read too good
[10:10.05]Don’t send me no more letters, no
[10:14.54]Not unless you mail them
[10:17.99]From Desolation Row