[Verse 1]
Sitting alone in his rocking chair with a pistol in his hand
Karl Dane got nothing left to give
You see his face at the picture show
In the silent days, the only life he would know
But by the middle of April, he had no reason to live
And when he opened his mouth, oh, you'd probably say the same
Invention of sound, and Karl Dane was out of the game
Give him a job, five dollars a day
Yeah, the studio told him that was all they would pay
And when they found him dead, he left himself for no one to claim

[Chorus]
And it's a modern world that we live in
And you got no place to go
It's a modern world that we live in
And it just ain't made for me

[Verse 2]
In the show of the freaks, yeah, I would probably guess
You'd find her standing there with hair from her chin to her chest
And then they shut it down, they found it politically incorrect
So it was on with the high heels and off with the beard
When she had a good shave she didn't look half weird
So now its nights on the corners just to come up with rent
And it's a shame the way Marcel would treat her so unkind
She picked up the pipe to make it through the day
Well you can find her there, face down in the curb
Two inches of water in the grave that she lay
[Chorus]
And it's a modern world that we live in
And you got no place to go
It's a modern world that we live in
And it just ain't made for me

[Verse 3]
Jesse James, Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid
Ain't no room inside the world for all the things that they did
Yeah, Rudolph Valentino, even Cool Hand Luke
Just like a king, queen, or pharaoh, like a jester or duke
Robert Lewis Stevenson and Jekyll and Hyde
Ed Gein, The Unabomber, Bonnie and Clyde
Randal McMurphy, I think he flew too high
Miles Davis, Ellington, and Holiday
Even Dylan's having trouble trying to make it today
Well, it’s a shame to say "That's just the way that it goes"
Gene Kelly tap-dancing, singing the blues
Bootlegging whiskey, prohibition of booze
I don't know what to do, I'll just have to learn I suppose

[Chorus]
But it's a modern world that we live in
And you got no place to go
It's a modern world that we live in
And it just ain't made for me
[Refrain]
It's a modern world that we live in
It's a modern world that we live in
It's a modern world that we live in
It's a modern world that we live in

[Chorus]
It's a modern world that we live in
And you got no place to go
It's a modern world that we live in
And it just ain't made for me