Craig Cardiff - 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 onе, " she smiles
And puts her hands in hеr
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'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 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

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

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
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
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 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's shouting to skinny girls
"Get outta 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
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 TS 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 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 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