What good is sitting alone
In you room?
Come hear the music play.
Life is a cabaret, old chum,
Come to the cabaret.
Put down the knitting,
The book and the broom.
Time for a holiday.
Life is a cabaret, old chum,
Come to the cabaret.
Come taste the wine,
Come hear the band.
Come blow a horn,
Start celebrating;
Right this way,
Your table's waiting.
No use permitting
Some prophet of doom
To wipe every smile away.
Come hear the music play.
Life is a cabaret, old chum,
Come to the cabaret!
I used to have a girlfriend
Known as Elsie,
With whom I shared
Four sordid rooms in Chelsea
She wasn't what you'd call
A blushing flower…
As a matter of fact
She rented by the hour.
The day she died the neighbors
Came to snicker:
«Well, that's what comes
From too much pills and liquor.»
But when I saw her laid out like a queen,
She was the happiest… corpse…
I'd ever seen.
I think of Elsie to this very day.
I remember how she'd turn to me and say:
«What good is sitting alone
In you room?
Come hear the music play.
Life is a cabaret, old chum,
Come to the cabaret.»
Put down the knitting,
The book and the broom.
Time for a holiday.
Life is a cabaret, old chum,
Come to the cabaret.»
And as for me,
I made my mind up, back in Chelsea,
When I go, I'm going like Elsie.
Start by admitting,
From cradle to tomb
Isn't that a long stay
Life is a cabaret, old chum,
Only a cabarert, old chum
And I love cabaret.