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 in comes Romeo, he's moaning
  "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's left
  After the ambulances go is Cinderella 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
    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 spend 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 a cigarette
  As he went off sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet
  Now 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 penny whistles you can hear then blow
  If you lean your head out far enough
  From Desolation Row