• They’re selling postcards of the hanging
    Well, they’re painting the passports brown
    And the beauty parlor’s filled with sailors
    The circus is in town
    Oh now look here comes the blind commissioner
    Well, they’ve got him in a trance
    One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
    The other’s 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

    Oh Cinderella, she seems so easy
    “Well, it takes one to know one,” she smiles
    And she puts her hands in her back pockets
    Oh Bette Davis style
    And now but here comes Romeo, moaning
    “You Belong to Me I Believe”
    And then someone says,”You’re in the wrong place, my friend
    You better leave”

    And then the only sound that’s left
    After the ambulances go
    Is Cinderella sweeping up
    On Desolation Row

    Yeah

    Now at midnight all the agents
    And superhuman crew
    Go out and round up everyone
    That knows more than they do (knows more than they do)
    They’re gonna 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 no one is escaping
    To Desolation Row

    ‘Cause right now I can’t read too good
    Don’t send me no letters no
    Not unless you’re gonna mail them
    From Desolation Row