Desolation Row

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 SWAT they're restless, they need somewhere to go
As the wonder that is my world 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 Kardashian style
And in comes Kanye, 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 the Corporations 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 and a Burqua titanium Chastity belt with flow control

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

just said from the grave all modern science is junk

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 gasoline laced fentoyal 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 ringtone whistles, you can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough from Desolation Row

Across the street they've nailed the roller blinds, they're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera in a perfect image of a  didling priest
They are spoon feeding Casanova to get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with VIAGARIA after poisoning him with words
And the White Slaver is 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 no fake news  is not being broadcast

from Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawn
Every body's shouting, "Which side are you on?!"
And H L Meckan and Orwell 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 TV spied on me

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

The song and lyrics are mostly made by Bob Dylan the greatest poet
singer that has ever existed by a margin thats interstellar.