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 cloth 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 ofcourse you mail them from Desolation Row
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