Oh, God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son" Abe said, "Man, you must be puttin' me on" God said, "No" Abe say, "What?" God say, "You can do what you want, Abe, but The next time you see me comin', you better run" Well, Abe said, "Where d'you want this killin' done?" God said, "Out on Highway 61"

Well, Georgia Sam, he had a bloody nose Welfare department, they wouldn't give him no clothes He asked poor Howard, "Where can I go?" Howard said, "There's only one place I know" Sam said, "Tell me quick, man, I got to run" Oh, Howard just pointed with his gun And said, "That way, down Highway 61"

Well, Mack the Finger said to Louie the King "I got forty red-white-and-blue shoestrings And a thousand telephones that don't ring Do you know where I can get rid of these things?" And Louie the King said, "Let me think for a minute, son" Then he said, "Yes, I think it can be easily done Just take everything down to Highway 61"

Now, the fifth daughter on the twelfth night Told the first father that things weren't right "My complexion, " she says, "is much too white" He said, "Come here and step into the light" He said, "Hmm, you're right, let me tell the second mother this has been done" But the second mother was with the seventh son And they were both out on Highway 61

Now, the roving gambler he was very bored Trying to create a next world war He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor He said, "I never engaged in this kind of thing before But yes, I think it can be very easily done We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun And have it on Highway 61"

When you're lost in the rain in Juarez when it's Easter time, too And your gravity fails and negativity don't pull you through Don't put on any airs when you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue They got some hungry women there and they really make a mess outta you

Now, if you see Saint Annie, please tell her thanks a lot I cannot move, my fingers are all in a knot I don't have the strength to get up and take another shot And my best friend, my doctor, won't even say what it is I've got

Sweet Melinda, the peasants call her the goddess of gloom She speaks good English and she invites you up into her room And you're so kind and careful not to go to her too soon And she takes your voice and leaves you howling at the moon

Up on Housing Project Hill, it's either fortune or fame You must pick one or the other, though neither of them are to be what they claim If you're lookin' to get silly, you better go back to from where you came Because the cops don't need you, and man, they expect the same

Now, all the authorities, they just stand around and boast How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms into leaving his post And picking up Angel, who just arrived here from the coast Who looked so fine at first but left looking just like a ghost

I started out on burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff Everybody said they'd stand behind me when the game got rough But the joke was on me, there was nobody even there to bluff I'm going back to New York City, I do believe I've had enough

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'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 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 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 frightful as he bummed a cigarette And he when 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'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 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 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 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 nobody is escaping to Desolation Row

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. Eliot 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 doorknob broke 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

Highway 61 Revisited album (part one) https://www.reddit.com/r/copypasta/comments/64nkn6/highway_61_revisited_album_part_one/