Disclaimer: I don't own Sweeney Todd or Bob Dylan, who wrote the majority of this
Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it
And Nellie holds a steamin' hot pie, temptin' you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The street musician plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to close off
Just Nellie and her lover, so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind
In the empty lot where the Beggar woman attempts to seduce customers down Fleet Street
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades of the elite
We can hear the night watchman raise his lantern
Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane
Nellie, she's all right, she's just near
She's clever and bakes pies in a room full of fear
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here
The ghost of flames from the oven howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place
Now, little sailor lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live virtuously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn
Inside the barbershop, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But the Beggar woman musta been victim to a lecher's wiles
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze
I can't find my knees"
Oh, razors swing from the hand of this fool
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel
The simple boy now speaks to the shop owner who's pretending to care for him
Sayin', "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"
But like Nellie always says
"Ya can't look at much, can ya, silly boy?"
As she, herself, prepares for him a new muffler
And Lucy, she still has not showed
We see this empty room now corrode
Where her light muslin gown once had flowed
Tobias, he now steps to the road
He says ev'rything's been returned which was owed
In the cursed oven that loads
While my conscience explodes
The razor shines like skeleton keys in the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain