Chris Smither Follow

They're paintin' the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town

People watch 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

Well Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," while she smiles
Puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style

And you the watch Romeo, he's moanin'
You belong to me I believe
And someone says
"You're in the wrong place, my friend you better leave"

And the only sound that you can here
After the ambulance's gone
Cinderella sweeping up
On desolation row

Now 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 it on 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 a cigarette
And he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet

Oh, you would 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 all 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, whistles
You can hear then 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
A perfect image of a priest

They're 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 outa 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 everyone
That knows more than they do

Then they take 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
To make sure that nobody is escaping
To desolation row

Oh, praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which side are you on?"

And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
They're 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 no one has to think too much
About desolation row

Yes, I received your letter yesterday
About the time the door knob broke
When you asked how I was doin'
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 so good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From desolation row

They're paintin' the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors