Cabaret of Corpses

Ladies and gentlemen... Or what remains of you... The ballroom is open. The music has begun. And the dead... Shall dance. Rise from your basements, rise from your beds Shake off the cobwebs and straighten your heads The jawbones are dropping, the kneecaps are loose But darlings, we're dancing — there IS no excuse Grandmother's waltzing with only one arm Grandfather's leading with skeletal charm The children are spinning in circles of bone The dead never dance when they're dancing alone One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-THREE The corpses are waltzing and waltzing with me One-two-three, one-two-three, feel the FLOOR The dead are alive and they're begging for more Welcome to the cabaret of corpses Where the dead wear their finest decomposing corsets Welcome to the ball that never ends Where the skeletons are everyone's best friends Dance, you gorgeous dead, DANCE This is your last and your forever chance The grimoire said to raise you from the ground And now the cabaret has the most devoted crowd in town Aunt Eliza's doing pirouettes Her head falls off — no one forgets To kick it gently to the side And keep on waltzing, full of pride The butler's bones play castanets Against the maid whose jaw resets Every time she tries to smile She hasn't smiled in quite a while The patriarch leads a conga line Of thirteen generations intertwined Their feet are dust, their hearts are gone But the RHYTHM — the rhythm carries on One-two-three, one-two-three, CRACK goes the spine One-two-three, one-two-three, everything's fine One-two-three, one-two-three, bones on the floor The cabaret of corpses wants encore after encore Welcome to the cabaret of corpses Where the dead wear their finest decomposing corsets Welcome to the ball that never ends Where the skeletons are everyone's best friends Dance, you gorgeous dead, DANCE This is your last and your forever chance The grimoire said to raise you from the ground And now the cabaret has the most devoted crowd in town But the music's getting LOUDER and the bones are getting THINNER And the dance is getting FASTER and the dead are getting DINNER And the walls are BLEEDING with the rhythm of the waltz And I realize — too late — this dance is not MY choice THEY'RE not dancing for me — I'M dancing for THEM The cabaret doesn't END The grimoire never said WHEN Welcome to the cabaret of corpses (I can't stop dancing) Where the dead wear their finest decomposing corsets (My feet won't stop) Welcome to the ball that never ends (It NEVER ends) Where the living become the dead's best friends Dance, Vesper, DANCE — you gorgeous living thing Dance until your bones begin to sing The grimoire raised the dead but trapped the LIVING And the cabaret takes everything worth giving One... two... three... One... two... One...