[Verse 1]
What good is sitting alone in your room?
Oh, come hear the music play
Oh, life is a cabaret, old chum
So come to the cabaret

[Verse 2]
Put down the knitting, the book and the broom
It's time for a holiday
I tell you life is a cabaret, old chum
So come to the cabaret

[Bridge]
Come taste the wine
And listen to that band
Come blow your horn, start celebrating
Right this way, your table's waiting

[Verse 3]
What good's permitting some prophet of gloom
To wipe every smile away?
I tell you life is a cabaret, old chum
So come to the cabaret!

[Interlude]
I used to have a girlfriend known as Elsie
With whom I shared four sordid rooms in Chelsea, she's a scream
Come to think of it
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:
[Verse 1]
"What good is sitting all by yourself in a room?"
Oh, you speak English
"Come hear the music play
Oh, life is a cabaret, old chum
Come to the cabaret"

[Bridge]
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

[Verse 4]
Start by admitting from cradle to tomb
It isn't that long a stay
Oh, life is a cabaret, old chum
It's only, what, a cabaret, old chum
And I love a cabaret!