SARDONICLLY CHEERIE WORDS FROM ROBERT ZIMMERMAN.....FOR HALLOWEEN NIGHT....TO THE COSTUMED REVELERS, ESCORTED BY THEIR MOMS, & DRESSED IN RENTED DISNEY PRINCESS AND CAPED SUPERHERO COSTUMES, BEGGING SUGARY TREATS AT THE FRONT DOORS OF CYNICAL STARVING ARTISTS AND POETS, SMOKING OPIUM WITH THEIR COSTUMED MISCREANT COMPANIONS... ON DESOLATION ROW....
They're selling postcards of the hanging, they're painting the passports brownThe beauty parlor is filled with sailors, the circus is in townHere comes the blind commissioner, they've got him in a tranceOne hand is tied to the tight-rope walker, the other is in his pantsAnd the riot squad they're restless, they need somewhere to goAs Lady and I look out tonight, from Desolation Row
Cinderella, she seems so easy, "It takes one to know one, " she smilesAnd puts her hands in her back pockets Bette Davis styleAnd 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 goIs Cinderella sweeping up on Desolation Row
Now the moon is almost hidden, the stars are beginning to hideThe fortune telling lady has even taken all her things insideAll except for Cain and Abel and the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love or else expecting rainAnd the Good Samaritan, he's dressing, he's getting ready for the showHe's going to the carnival tonight on Desolation Row
Ophelia, she's 'neath the window for her I feel so afraidOn her twenty-second birthday she already is an old maidTo her, death is quite romantic she wears an iron vestHer profession's her religion, her sin is her lifelessnessAnd though her eyes are fixed upon Noah's great rainbowShe spends her time peeking into Desolation Row
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood with his memories in a trunkPassed this way an hour ago with his friend, a jealous monkNow he looked so immaculately frightful as he bummed a cigaretteAnd he when off sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabetYou would not think to look at him, but he was famous long agoFor playing the electric violin on Desolation Row
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world inside of a leather cupBut all his sexless patients, they're trying to blow it upNow his nurse, some local loser, she's in charge of the cyanide holeAnd she also keeps the cards that read, "Have Mercy on His Soul"They all play on the penny whistles, you can hear them blowIf you lean your head out far enough from Desolation Row
Across the street they've nailed the curtains, they're getting ready for the feastThe Phantom of the Opera in a perfect image of a priestThey are spoon feeding Casanova to get him to feel more assuredThen they'll kill him with self-confidence after poisoning him with wordsAnd 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 crewCome out and round up everyone that knows more than they doThen they bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machineIs strapped across their shoulders and then the keroseneIs brought down from the castles by insurance men who goCheck to see that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row
Praise be to Nero's Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawnEverybody's shouting, "Which side are you on?!"And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain's towerWhile calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowersBetween the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flowAnd nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row
Yes, I received your letter yesterday, about the time the doorknob brokeWhen you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of jokeAll these people that you mention, yes, I know them, they're quite lameI had to rearrange their faces and give them all another nameRight now, I can't read too good, don't send me no more letters noNot unless you mail them from Desolation Row
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