Ramshackle Day Parade

Muffle the drums
Behold the new century comes
Was it all the amphetamine presidents
And their busy wives?
Or did Manhattan crumble
The day Marilyn died?
All your life, dreaming a dream
Somehow connected with the silver screen
Half-closed eyes you realize
Loving the life that is paradise
In a Technicolor fade
A dreamer parade
Like some bop house
Bop house serenade
Every dog must have his day

Ramshackle Day Parade
We're going on through
Ramshackle Day Parade

This is the ramshackle day parade
Of all those lost, unborn, and unmade
And whose heads got filled with the neon lava
And remain buried underneath this road

Ramshackle Day Parade

Taking the freight elevator from the incinerator
Come the hopped-up G-men riding refrigerated alligators
Faces of the civil wars
And holograms holding .44s
After the deranged cowboys
Bring out the banners of Stalingrad
Bring out the banners of Stalingrad
Here come the marching band
With a bag of indolence

This is the Ramshackle Day Parade
Ramshackle Day Parade