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.
And if the water dries, the ground shakes and the sky turns black
If it was all over this minute, this second, is there something that you’d regret?
If we were written as a story, actors portrayed us in a movie
Our lives sung in a song on the radio
Would it make you want to sing along?
Would it show us all a reason to stay strong?
Alright…
And if I could change all that I have become
If I could take all the anger and the hate and just give it right back to where it came from
I know somewhere I’d find an audience; I know I’d still find a stage
That would make me want to sing along
That would show us all a reason to stay strong
Do an audience and judgment replace this ticking like a mine?
I look stage left and I look stage right
This is our same move, just a different night
And it goes…
I have lost it all and I have found again
All of my reasons
It’s trickling to an end
Let the saints with me be taken as self-definition
Am I getting through to you?
America
Oh I’m not sick searching in America
And in this we celebrate all that is not okay
I don’t know what I believe in
I don’t know where I belong
So I scream at the top of my lungs and I run in every direction.
If it was all over this minute, this second, is there something that you’d regret?
If we were written as a story, actors portrayed us in a movie
Our lives sung in a song on the radio
Would it make you want to sing along?
Would it show us all a reason to stay strong?
Alright…
And if I could change all that I have become
If I could take all the anger and the hate and just give it right back to where it came from
I know somewhere I’d find an audience; I know I’d still find a stage
That would make me want to sing along
That would show us all a reason to stay strong
Do an audience and judgment replace this ticking like a mine?
I look stage left and I look stage right
This is our same move, just a different night
And it goes…
I have lost it all and I have found again
All of my reasons
It’s trickling to an end
Let the saints with me be taken as self-definition
Am I getting through to you?
America
Oh I’m not sick searching in America
And in this we celebrate all that is not okay
I don’t know what I believe in
I don’t know where I belong
So I scream at the top of my lungs and I run in every direction.
Lyrics submitted by shieldyoureyes
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This is also on Total Clarity; "Lost and Searching in America