[Verse 1]

Sitting alone in his rocking chair with a pistol in his hand

Karl Dane got nothing left to give

You see his face at the picture show

In the silent days, the only life he would know

But by the middle of April, he had no reason to live

But when he opened his mouth, oh, you'd probably say the same

Invention of sound, and Karl Dane was out of the game

Give him a job, five dollars a day

Yeah, the studio told him that was all they would pay

And when they found him dead, he left himself for no one to claim

[Chorus]

And it's a modern world that we live in

And you got no place to go

It's a modern world that we live in

And it just ain't made for me

[Verse 2]

In the show of the freaks, yeah, I would probably guess

You'd find her standing there with hair from her chin to her chest

And then they shut it down, they found it politically incorrect

So it was on with the high heels and off with the beard

When she'd had a good shave she didn't look half weird

So now it's nights on the corners just to come up with rent

And it's a shame the way Marcel would treat her so unkind

She picked up the pipe to make it through the day

Well you can find her there, face down in the curb

Two inches of water in the grave that she lay

[Chorus]

And it's a modern world that we live in

And you got no place to go

It's a modern world that we live in

And it just ain't made for me

[Verse 3]

Jesse James, Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid

Ain't no room inside the world for all the things that they did

Yeah, Rudolph Valentino, even Cool Hand Luke

Just like a king, queen, or pharaoh, like a jester or duke

Robert Lewis Stevenson and Jekyll and Hyde

Ed Gein, The Unabomber, Bonnie and Clyde

Randal McMurphy, I think he flew too high

Miles Davis, Ellington, and Holiday

Even Dylan's having trouble trying to make it today

Well, it’s a shame to say "That's just the way that it goes"

Gene Kelly tap-dancing, singing the blues

Bootlegging whiskey, prohibition of booze

I don't know what to do, I just have to learn, I suppose

[Chorus]

Well, it's a modern world that we live in

And you got no place to go

It's a modern world that we live in

And it just ain't made for me

[Refrain]

It's a modern world that we live in

It's a modern world that we live in

It's a modern world that we live in

It's a modern world that we live in

[Chorus]

It's a modern world that we live in

And you got no place to go

It's a modern world that we live in

And it just ain't made for me