Desolation Row - Take 5 Remake, Complete
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 here comes Romeo moaning, "You belong to me, I believe" And someone turn and says to him, "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 they beginning to hide Even the fortune-telling lady has taken all her things inside All except for Cain and Abel and the hunchback of Notre Dame Everybody else 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 on Desolation Row Ophelia, she's 'neath the window, for her, I feel 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 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 his cigarette And he when 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 up 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 She also keeps the cards that read, "Have mercy on his soul" They all play that 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 getting ready for the feast The Phantom of the Opera in a perfect image of a priest He is spoon-feeding Casanova, the guts of birds Then he'll clothe him with self-confidence and poisoning him with words And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls, "Get outta here if you don't know" Casanova is just being punished for going to Desolation Row Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew Come out and round up everybody that knows more than they do Then they bring them to the factory where the 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. Eliot 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 ever has to think too much about Desolation Row I received your letter yesterday, about the time that the doorknob broke When you asked me how I was doing, is that some kind of joke? Yes, all these people that you mention, I know them, they're quite lame I had to rearrange their faces and give them all another name Right now, I'm just walking by myself, don't write me no more letters, no Unless of course you mail them from Desolation Row
Audio Features
Song Details
- Duration
- 10:49
- Key
- 4
- Tempo
- 198 BPM
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