"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 a horn, Start celebrating;
Right this way, Your table's waiting.

What good's permitting Some prophet of doom
To wipe every smile away.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
So Come to the Cabaret!

I used to have a girlfriend Known as Elsie,
With whom I shared A 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 all alone in you 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 a long a stay.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
It's only a Cabaret, old chum
And I love a Cabaret.