Carnival of the Ghosts

One carnival, I was jumping in a band
When I started feeling feint and passed out by the stand
I don't know how long I lay there on the ground
But when I came to my senses there was no one else around
It was the dead of night when I scrambled to feet
The wind howled like a beaten dog dragging rubbish down the street
Then I heard shuffling of feet and rattling of bones
Saw the whole place bathed in a spectral glow
Then as night follows day
It was the spirits of the dead come out to play

I was a man from the land of the living
And I thought my senses where deceiving
Because I was seeing but was not believing
what was happening all around
You could just imagine how I was trembling
To see the spirits of the dead assembling
And then to notice some of them resembling
people I heard about

In a big green turban was Shah Jahan
quarreling with a young woman
He shouting, girl you make me want to bawl
I can't believe for you I went and build the Taj Mahal
King Herod say, eh boy don't fret
You ain't see dotish for woman yet
For two thousand years now I never ate
Since I put John the Baptist head on a plate

I was a man from the land of the living
You could imagine just how I was feeling
My heart was racing and my mind was reeling
Too frightened to scream
You could imagine just how I was shaking
To feel like a man now forsaken
Hoping that he would just awaken
From this dreadful dream

By the old Roxy Theatre
I saw what looked like a roman emperor
It was Julius Caesar coming down
Daggers in his back, laurels on his brow
He said, I had legions at my command
And still I get stuck like a pin cushion
His wife said, Jules you didn't have no sense
to know you must never turn your back on your friends

I was a man from the land of the living
In that carnival of the ghosts now reveling
The whole while the rhythm was compelling
Me to join they parade
I was a man from the land of the living
And I confess that my flesh was tingling
To find myself now mingling
In that masquerade

I saw too many things to relate
Shaka Zulu wining with Katherine the Great
Genghis Khan and Cassanova
Arguing who was the greater conqueror
They were prancing all around
When there was a commotion in the crowd
It was King Henry the Eighth running for his life
Being chased down the road by six angry wives

I was a man from the land of the living
You could imagine how it was upsetting
to know there was no way of getting
Back to my native land
You could imagine just how I was grieving
To know there was no way now of leaving
So I had to abandon the plan
And go jump in the dead man band