What good is sitting alone in your 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, it's time for a holiday
Life is a 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 some prophet of doom to wipe every smile away
Life is a Cabaret, old chum, come to the cabaret

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 neighbor's 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 there isn't that long a stay
Life is a cabaret, old chum.
Only a cabaret old chum,
And I love a cabaret!