Lyrics
[Verse 1]
What good is sitting alone in your room?
Come, hear the music play
Life is a cabaret, old chum
Come to the Cabaret
[Verse 2]
Put down the knitting, the book, and the broom
It's time for a holiday
Life is a cabaret, old chum
Come to the Cabaret
[PreChorus]
Come, taste the wine, come, hear the band
Come, blow your horn, start celebrating
Right this way, your table's waiting
[Chorus]
What good's permitting some prophet of doom
To wipe every smile away?
Life is a cabaret, old chum
So come to the Cabaret
[Verse 3]
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
[Verse 4]
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
[Chorus]
"What good is sitting all alone in your room?
Come, hear the music play
Life is a cabaret, old chum
Come to the Cabaret"
[Verse 5]
And as for me, ha, and as for me
I made my mind up back in Chelsea
When I go
I'm going like Elsie
[Outro]
Start by admitting from cradle to tomb
It isn't that long a stay
Life is a cabaret, old chum
It's only a cabaret, old chum
And I love a cabaret
Written by: Fred Ebb, John Kander