Can you hear it?
The sound of something burning, something changing
On the merry-go-round tonight
The pictures on my wall are about to swing and fall
Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something’s coming, something good, if I can wait
Something’s coming, I don’t know what it is
But it is gonna be great
Once upon a night we’ll wake to the carnival of life
The beauty of this ride ahead such an incredible high
It’s hard to light a candle, easy to curse the dark instead
This moment the dawn of humanity, the last ride of the day
Life is a cabaret, old chum.
Life is a carnival
Believe it or not
Life is a carnival
Two bits a shot
‘Cause I’ve been blind Oh, so blind
I wasted time Wasted, wasted, all too much time
Walkin’ on the wire, high wire
But I must let the show go…
I must let the show go…
I must let the show go on
We’re all alone on the stage tonight.
We’ve been told we’re not afraid of you.
We know all our lines so well, uh-huh.
We’ve said them so many times:
Time and time again, line and line again.
All the world’s indeed a stage
And we are merely players, performers and portrayers
Each another’s audience outside the gilded cage
Outside the cage I see my Brother John,
He turns his head so slowly round.
I cry out help! before he can be gone,
And he looks at me without a sound.
Soon the Gypsy Queen in a glaze of vaseline
Will perform on guillotine, what a scene, what a scene
Next upon the stand will you please extend a hand
To Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Dixieland, Dixieland
Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton,
Old times there are not forgotten.
Look away, look away, look away Dixie Land!
Oh when those cotton balls get rotten
You can’t pick you very much cotton
In them old cotton fields back home
Rotten peaches rotting in the sun
Seems I’ve seen that devil fruit since the world begun
Mercy I’m a criminal, Jesus I’m the one
Rotten peaches rotting in the sun
The crops are all in and the peaches are rott’ning,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They’re flying 'em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again
There’s a thump, a rumble, and the buildings sway
A soldier fires the acid spray
The public address system starts to play
‘South of the Border’
It’s kinda like a lost and found in a border town
Askin’ bout a diamond ring
They just look at you like you’ve lost your mind
Say they haven’t seen a thing
Tomorrow my love and I
Will sleep 'neath auburn skies
Somewhere across the border
Somewhere out there
Beneath the pale moonlight
Someone’s thinking of me
And loving me tonight
Let’s sway you could look into my eyes
Let’s sway under the moonlight,
this serious moonlight
It’s just that demon life has got me in its sway