There was fog on the water
As we were led to our slaughter
With the sound of their lies, whites of their eyes left behind
We had nothing but science
And a steely defiance
We staggered out bravely, stoned out of our minds
It was dawn in Las Vegas
Down with the faded and famous
And the fat in the fire had leaped straight out of the pan
No word of warning was whispered
From the vagrants and drifters
It was dead as a cloister when we went roistering on

In the ghostly casino
That only the dead know
We were playing the odds as we did tricks with our cards in the dark
By the light of dim sconces
We sought measured responses
As we found revelations in fresh combinations of quarks
It's a bolt from the blue
It's a hole in your shoe
It's a last look back home as you enter the Dome of the dead
Humpty Dumpty lay broken
The grave diggers were joking
We'd been hijacked and hacked, left without a fact in our heads

Beneath the alleys of reason
We were trapped by believing
In immersions diversions subversions recursions galore
Past our lost inhibitions
Operant conditioned
Was the dread that we'd lost any shred of what we once stood for
It's a bright lick of pain
From the simian brain
It's a word in your ear when there is no one nearby who spoke
Faint glimpses of freedom
Ah hell, did we need 'em
Cause we wandered in loaded and left several steps short of broke

All hope was distant
Rescued at the last instant
Near a tropical stream by a sunbeam that ends in a hand
We had finally connected
With that world we suspected
And had an unshakeable sense that this turn of events had been planned
It's a hint of a sign
Of a larger design
And you're feeling so quaint as the saints go marching in
Now you're hanging with Elvis
Fifty miles over Memphis
Floating like angels but still feeling nothing but sin

There is nothing to fear
The finale is near
And you fold up your program and wander off into the night
You have the sense of an ending
That dissolves all pretending
And you shuffle down Broadway agog and amazed at the lights
It's a chimp in a dress
It's lunch with Lutece
in the heat of the day when you kneel down and pray for the end
We were shattered to pieces
Nailed by ninety-five theses
Now we lie on damp sheets and walk empty streets and pretend