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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 cabaret, old chum
Come to the cabaret

Come taste the wine
Come hear the band
Come blow your horn
Start celebrating
Right this way
Your table's waiting

No use permitting
Poem 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 to 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'd remember, how'd she turn to me and say
What good is sitting alone in your room?
Come hear the music play
Life is a cabaret, old chum
Come to the cabaret

And as for me
I made up my mind back in Chelsea
When I go, I'm going like Elsie

Start by admitting
From cradle to tomb
Isn't that long a stay?
Life is a cabaret, old chum
Only a cabaret, old chum
And I love a cabaret!

Come hear the music play
Life is a cabaret, old chum