Desolation Row (Take 1, Alternate Take) - Bob Dylan

Written by：Bob Dylan

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 tightrope 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

Puts her hands in her back pocket

Bette Davis style

And in comes Romeo he's moaning

You belong to me I believe

And someone turns 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 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 else's 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 22nd birthday

She already is an old maid

Now to her death is quite romantic

She wears an ironed 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

Now he looked so immaculately

As he bummed a cigarette

Then he went 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

On desolation row

Dr Filth he keeps his world

Inside of a leather cup

But all his sexless patients

They are 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 on the penny whistle

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

They are spoon feeding Casanova

Boy you've got some birds

They will kill him with self confidence

After poisoning him with words

And the phantom shouting to skinny girls

Get out of 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

And they take them to the factory

And their 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

Now 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 Elliot

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

I received your letter yesterday

About the time the doorknob broke

When you asked me how I was doing

Was that some kind of joke

All these people that you mentioned

Yes I know them they're quite lame

I had to rearrange their faces

And give them all another name

Right now my head is breaking

Don't send me no more letters no

Not unless you mail them from

Desolation row