What good is sittin' alone in your room
Come hear the music play,
Life is a cabaret old chum
Come to the cabaret.
Put down that knittin', the book and the broom
Time for a holiday,
Life is a cabaret old chum
Come to the cabaret.

Come taste the wine, come hear that band
Come blow your horn, start celebratin'
Right this way, your table's waitin'
No use permittin' some prophet of doom
Wipe every smile away,
Life is a cabaret old chum
So come to the cabaret!

I used to have this girl friend 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 of too much pills and liquor
But when I saw her laid down 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 sittin' alone in your room
Come hear the music play,
Life is a cabaret old chum
Come to the cabaret"
And as for me, ha!
And as for me,
I made my mind up back in Chelsea
When I goooooooooooooooo,
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
It's only a Cabaret old chum
Life is a Cabaret, old chum
And I love a Cabaret!