This Vicious Cabaret

They say that there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway

They say that life's a game, then they take the board away

They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story

Then leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret

In no-longer-pretty cities there are fingers in kitties

There are warrants, forms, and chitties and a jackboot on the stair

Sex and death and human grime, in monochrome for one thin dime

But at least the trains all run on time but they don't go anywhere

Facing their Responsibilities either on their backs or on their knees

There are ladies who just simply freeze and dare not turn away

And the widows who refuse to cry will be dressed in garter and bow-tie

And be taught to kick their legs up high in this vicious cabaret

At last! The 1998 Show!

The ballet on the burning stage

The documentary see

Upon the fractured screen

The dreadful poem scrwled upon the crumpled page

There's a policeman with an honest soul that has seen whose head is on the pole

And he grunts and fills his briar bowl with a feeling of unease

But he briskly frisks the torn remains for a fingerprint or crimson stains

And endevours to ignore the chins that he walks in to his knees

while his master in the dark nearby inspects the hands, with a brutal eye

That have never brushed a lover's thigh but have squeezed a nation's threat

But he hungers in his secret dreams for the harsh embrace of cruel machines

But his lover is not what she seems and she will not leave a note

At last! The 1998 Show!

The Situation Tragedy

Grand Opera slick with soap

Cliffhangers with no hope

The water-colour in the flooded gallery

There's a girl who'll push but not shove and is desperate for her father's love

She believes the hand beneath the glove maybe one she needs to hold

Though she doubts her hosts moralities she decides she is more at ease

In the Land Of Doing What You Please than outside in the cold

But the backdrop's peel and the sets give way and the cast gets eaten by the play

There's a murderer at the Matinee, there are dead men in the aisles

And the patrons and actors too are uncertain if the show is through

And with side-long looks await their cue but the frozen mask just smiles

At last! The 1998 Show!

The torch-song no one ever sings

The curfew chorus line

The comedy divine

The bulging eyes of puppets strangled by their strings

There's thrills and chills and girls galore, sing-songs and surprises

There's something hear for everyone, (reserve your seat today)

There's mischief and malarkies but no queers or yids or darkies

Within this bastard's carnival, this vicious cabaret