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 that 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 girlfriend known as Elsie
With whom I shared four sordid rooms in Chelsea
She wasn't what you 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 up like a queen
She was the happiest corpse I'd ever seen
And as for me, as for me
I made my mind up back in Chelsea:
When I go I am going like Elsie

Start by admitting from cradle to tomb:
It's such a long, long stay
Life is a cabaret, old chum
Come to the cabaret

What good is sitting alone in your room?
Come hear the music play
Life is a cabaret, old chum
Come to the cabaret

Life is a cabaret, old chum
Come to the caba-, call me a cab-a, I love a cabaret!