Come taste the wine, come hear the band.
Come blow the horn, start celebrating.
Right this way your table’s waiting!
No use permitting some prophet of doom
To wipe every smile away.
Life is a cabaret, old chum, come to the cabaret.
Interlude:
I used to have this 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 your room?
Come hear the music play.
Life is a cabaret, old chum, come to the cabaret.
And as for me, 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 it isn’t that long a stay.
Life is a cabaret, old chum, only a cabaret old chum,
And I love a cabaret.