Dress Rehearsal Rag

(album: In My Life - 1966)

Got up sometime in the afternoon
And you didn't feel like much
You said to yourself, "Where are you, golden boy
Where is your famous golden touch?"

I thought you knew where
All the elephants lie down
I thought you were the crown prince
Of all the wheels in Ivory town

Look at your body now
Where there's nothing much to say
And a bitter voice in the mirror says
"Hey prince, you need a shave"

Now if you can manage to get
Your trembling fingers to behave
Why don't you try unwrapping
A stainless steel razor blade?

That's right, it's come to this
It's come to this
And wasn't it a long way down?
And wasn't it a strange way down?

There's no hot water
And the cold is running thin
Well, what do you expect
From the kind of places you've been living in?

Don't drink from that cup
It's all caked and cracked along the rim
That's not the electric light, my friend
That is your vision that is dim

Cover up your face with soap, there
Now, you're Santa Claus
And you've got an A for anyone
Who will give you his applause

I thought you were a racing man
Ah, but you couldn't take the pace
That's a funeral in the mirror
And it's stopping at your face

That's right, it's come to this
It's come to this
And wasn't it a long way down?
And wasn't it a strange way down?

Once there was a path
And a girl with chestnut hair
And you spent the summers
Picking all the berries that grew there

There were times she was a woman
There were times she was a child
As you held her in the shadows
Where the raspberries grow wild

And you climbed the highest mountains
And you sang about the view
And everywhere you went
Love went along with you

That's a hard one to remember
It makes you clench your fist
And the veins stand out like highways
All along your wrist

And yes, it's come to this
It's come to this
And wasn't it a long way down?
Wasn't it a strange way down?

You can still find a job
Go out and talk to a friend
On the back of every magazine
There are coupons you can send

Why don't you join the Rosicrucians?
They will give you back your hope
You can find your love in diagrams
In a plain, brown envelope

But you've used up all your coupons
Except the one that seems
To be tattooed on your arm
Along with several thousand dreams

Now Santa Claus comes forward
That's a razor in his mitt
And he puts on his dark glasses
And he shows you where to hit

And then the cameras pan
The stand in stuntman's
Dress rehearsal rag