The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
[we're recording, shut up]
Strontium-90
Removed from milk
Is as curious an entity
As bullshit writ on silk
Cancer's airborne now
Do you hear the sound?
I was hanging out the washing, man
As the rain came falling down
Now the grass lies snakes
Has crowds of iodine and fire
On Jezebel's luminescence
I swear you are my heart's desire
Bombproof the embassy
Give infanticide a cemetery
You looked so good on the late night news
With your curtain and your deed
Yeah, I love you like a violin
I'll hunt you like an amputee
But I ain't gonna lose my skin
I would love to see you again,
Again...
I... I would love to see you again
I... I would love to see you again
You wrote me a letter
And this is how it went:
It said, "We're just backing up the supply lines
The first division's crossin' the Nile
Through the rushes and up the side
And into the machine gun fire"
Yeah, you tell me that this is not a dream
I've become a steel spring
Uranium tips, night vision cruise missiles
Gonna cut the belly out of the sky
I rode an Abrams
And we stopped in Bethlehem
They made the answers here
But there weren't so many questions then
And there I shot a woman
In a headscarf with my gun
She said, "Does my bomb look big in this?
Am I the only one?"
I was in the blitz, you know
When my heart was young and true
I had a Caesarean, but it was not any use
Oh, calamity! Oh, the vanity!
You can't ride a thunderbolt
You can't claim an enemy
There ain't nothing here
Except a darkness, Lord
I ain't gonna fail no test
I gave my dowry to a finger on a switch
Turn me to a fine pink mist
But I ain't nothing but your stranger still
If I'm even anyone at all
But I ain't gonna lose my skin
I would love to see you again,
Again...
I... I would love to see you again
I... I would love to see you again
But that ain't gonna happen now
It's no use to pretend
No
How many people gonna lie?
How many people gonna die?
What's best for the West and the greed?
Kill 'em all? Let 'em breed?
Another bomb for every atom you injure
Meet the Devil with extended ring finger
Saying "thou shalt not kill"
But I'm damned if I don't
So I'm thinking I will
Yeah, Dan Pearl
They cut your head off on TV
But I am not a camera
A man is not an effigy
But still all this horror
Has made a trench out of my soul
I'm gonna have to fall in love with a blind girl
So she will not see the shame that I know
Oh, new scar
You have raised the bar
Goliath rides an oil drum raft
Through a cyclone in my ear drums
You don't want a tyrant, we're sure
You'd prefer civil war
And I am gonna lose my skin
And I ain't gonna see you again
Again...
I... I would love to see you again
I... I would love to see you again
Strontium-90
Removed from milk
Is as curious an entity
As bullshit writ on silk
Cancer's airborne now
Do you hear the sound?
I was hanging out the washing, man
As the rain came falling down
Now the grass lies snakes
Has crowds of iodine and fire
On Jezebel's luminescence
I swear you are my heart's desire
Bombproof the embassy
Give infanticide a cemetery
You looked so good on the late night news
With your curtain and your deed
Yeah, I love you like a violin
I'll hunt you like an amputee
But I ain't gonna lose my skin
I would love to see you again,
Again...
I... I would love to see you again
I... I would love to see you again
You wrote me a letter
And this is how it went:
It said, "We're just backing up the supply lines
The first division's crossin' the Nile
Through the rushes and up the side
And into the machine gun fire"
Yeah, you tell me that this is not a dream
I've become a steel spring
Uranium tips, night vision cruise missiles
Gonna cut the belly out of the sky
I rode an Abrams
And we stopped in Bethlehem
They made the answers here
But there weren't so many questions then
And there I shot a woman
In a headscarf with my gun
She said, "Does my bomb look big in this?
Am I the only one?"
I was in the blitz, you know
When my heart was young and true
I had a Caesarean, but it was not any use
Oh, calamity! Oh, the vanity!
You can't ride a thunderbolt
You can't claim an enemy
There ain't nothing here
Except a darkness, Lord
I ain't gonna fail no test
I gave my dowry to a finger on a switch
Turn me to a fine pink mist
But I ain't nothing but your stranger still
If I'm even anyone at all
But I ain't gonna lose my skin
I would love to see you again,
Again...
I... I would love to see you again
I... I would love to see you again
But that ain't gonna happen now
It's no use to pretend
No
How many people gonna lie?
How many people gonna die?
What's best for the West and the greed?
Kill 'em all? Let 'em breed?
Another bomb for every atom you injure
Meet the Devil with extended ring finger
Saying "thou shalt not kill"
But I'm damned if I don't
So I'm thinking I will
Yeah, Dan Pearl
They cut your head off on TV
But I am not a camera
A man is not an effigy
But still all this horror
Has made a trench out of my soul
I'm gonna have to fall in love with a blind girl
So she will not see the shame that I know
Oh, new scar
You have raised the bar
Goliath rides an oil drum raft
Through a cyclone in my ear drums
You don't want a tyrant, we're sure
You'd prefer civil war
And I am gonna lose my skin
And I ain't gonna see you again
Again...
I... I would love to see you again
I... I would love to see you again
Lyrics submitted by shrodes
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Total amazing song, so many different ideas squeezed in there (nearly 8 minutes, but it still flies by). Some of this info comes from an interview Gareth did in Mess + Noise magazine, some I've interpreted myself. The Strontium 90, Iodine, milk, Jezebel (a cow, apparently) come from when nuclear testing was done in Woomera in outback South Australia. The fallout was carried to populated parts of Aust and "rained down", was absorbed into grass, eaten by cow and then affected a whole generation of kids. Gareth's home town of "Ether" a.k.a. Port Hedland, may have been one of the areas affected by this.
This next few verse switch to talking about war in the middle east. Uranium tips refer to the "depleted" uranium ammunition used by the US which is now suspected to be causing radiation sickness in their own troops. "Night vision, cruise missiles" refers to the footage ithat was seen almost nightly during the first gulf war.
Bethlehem is obviously a biblical reference. The "does my bomb look big in this" line I love, because it seems to reference 2 things, The use of suicide bombers/IEDs and also the westernisation of the middle east (i.e. the vanity of "does my bum look big in this)
Dan Pearl was a US journalist executed in the middle east (try youtube). The camera, effigy line I believe means: I am not a machine, I cannot view this image without emotion and a human cannot be treated as something to be destroyed in order to make a point, political or otherwise.
The next verse is about the "blood for oil" war. New Scar = G.W. Bush? Is Goliath (another biblical reference) the US, riding the middle eastern oil drum through their hurricane Katrina?
Tyrant: Saddam, now gone, but the Iraqis are left with a civil was.