Dress Rehearsal Rag

Four o'clock in the afternoon and I didn't feel like very much. I said to myself, "Where are you golden boy, where is your famous golden touch?" I thought you knew where all of the elephants lie down, I thought you were the crown prince of all the wheels in Ivory Town. Just take a look at your body now, there's nothing much to save and a bitter voice in the mirror cries, "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, yes it's come to this, and wasn't it a long way down, 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 growing dim. Cover up your face with soap, there, now you're Santa Claus. And you've got a gift 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, yes it's come to this, and wasn't it a long way down, ah wasn't it a strange way down? Once there was a path and a girl with chestnut hair, and you passed the summers picking all of the berries that grew there; there were times she was a woman, oh, there were times she was just a child, and you held her in the shadows where the raspberries grow wild. And you climbed the twilight mountains and you sang about the view, and everywhere that you wandered love seemed to go along with you. That's a hard one to remember, yes it makes you clench your fist. And then 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 those coupons you can send. Why don't you join the Rosicrucians, they can give you back your hope, you can find your love with diagrams on a plain brown envelope. But you've used up all your coupons except the one that seems to be written on your wrist along with several thousand dreams. Now Santa Claus comes forward, that's a razor in his mit; and he puts on his dark glasses and he shows you where to hit; and then the cameras pan, the stand in stunt man, dress rehearsal rag, it's just the dress rehearsal rag, you know this dress rehearsal rag, it's just a dress rehearsal rag.