1890

There's a crowd moving down the street
In the glare of a midsummer's beat
The men beating on their drums
Dancing the Samba

There's a girl of seventeen
Playing rhythms on her tambourine
The heat is so strong
It's already well past December

And in the strange and misty haze
I saw those old colonial days
Of Rio in the old Carnival of 1890

There's a man sleeping in the street
He's unable to stand up on his feet
He's drunk too much rum
And made too much love in the moonlight

The Mulatta's got a look in her eye
You can tell the way she's moving her thighs
She's lost in a trance and you know she'll dance
Till sunlight

And in the strange and misty haze
I saw those old colonial days
Of Rio in the old Carnival of 1890

They were dancing in the street
Dancing in the street
Dancing in the street