To me, this is one of the "only one singer can do it right" songs.

Namely, Bob Gibson. He would start out a set with it, with a pitch dark, black stage. Then you'd hear the banjo, with a slow and repetitive BING bong, BING bong, BING bong sequence, which you'd realize was a clock ticking. Suddenly a tight pin spot on Bob's face, all else dark, and he'd sing, "Quarter to three.. No-one in the place, except you and me. So set 'em up, Joe. Can't you make the music dreamy and slow?"

Yes, I know, those are not the words as set forth above. Gibson did it a little differently--a little better. No, a LOT better. SO dejected, SO contemplative, SO sad!
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I've reconstructed Gibson's text, which was VERY close to what I give below. I've asterisked the lines where I note the lyrics are different in his version.

One for My Baby

*Quarter to three,
There's no one in the place except you and me
So set em up, Joe
*Can't you make the music dreamy and slow
*I'm drinking my friend
To the end of a brief episode
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

*I got the routine
*Put another nickel in the machine
I'm feeling so bad
Wont you make the music easy and sad

*I could tell you a lot
*But that's not in a gentleman's code
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

*I may not show it
*But buddy, I'm a kind of poet
And I've got a lot of things to say
*When I gets gloomy, ya gotta listen to me
*Till I'm all talked away

Well, that's how it goes
And Joe, I know you're gettin' anxious to close
So thanks for the cheer
I hope you didn't mind me
Bending your ear

*But this torch that I found
*It's gotta be drowned
*Or it soon might explode
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

*Make it one for my baby
*And one more for the road.

The differences may mean nothing to anyone else, but they make ALL the difference, to me!

I can't listen to anyone else sing this. And absolutely not Frank Sinatra, who had a compulsion to jazz it up and "be hip".

Dave Oesterreich