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.
I’m sorry that I’m late
I went blind
I got confetti in my eyes
I was held up at yesterday’s parties
I was needed on the congo line
But my dear, oh my dear
I’d like to fight the good fight for another couple of years
‘cause to say the war is over is to say you are a widow
You’re not a widow yet!
You’re not a widow yet!
You’re not a widow yet!
You’re not a widow yet!
So this one’s for the critics and their disappointed mothers
For the cupid and the hunter shooting arrows at each other
Ain’t no such thing as a saint,
Ain’t no such thing as a sinner, oh
There’s a swan among the pigeons of Barcelona’s floor
There’s a Samson with Delilahs lining up outside the door
If you are sharpening your scissors
I am sharpening my scissors,
And I am sharpening my sword
So you can take me to the dragon’s lair
Or you can take me to Rapunzel’s windowsill
Either way it is time for a bigger kind of kill…
A bigger kind of kill.
Oh I see your face when I close my eyes
Oh I see the muscles in your legs from the way you always rise
To the occasion of catching things that fall
Like the statuettes on pedestals I tend to build too tall.
But I have navigated Iceland
I’ve laid my claim on Portugal
I have seen into the wasteland
Oh the future
Oh the future of us all.
i kicked up a whole country
of dead, dead leaves last fall
i kicked up a whole country
of dead, dead leaves last fall
Dead leaves
Dead leaves
Dead leaves
Dead leaves
Seen from the back of a train
I rode away from your station
They drifted in the air
Like memoirs of old conversations
Sprung from a leather case
You opened in the wind
To watch the papers chase each other
Into oblivion
(You’re such a champion
You’re such a champion
I hide behind your sun
You are the champion) x3
So you can take me to the dragon’s lair
You can take me to Rapunzel’s windowsill
Either way it is time, oh it is time
For a bigger kind of kill…
A bigger kind of kill
A bigger kind of kill (x10)
A bigger kind of kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
A bigger kind of kill (x3)
A bigger kind of kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
I went blind
I got confetti in my eyes
I was held up at yesterday’s parties
I was needed on the congo line
But my dear, oh my dear
I’d like to fight the good fight for another couple of years
‘cause to say the war is over is to say you are a widow
You’re not a widow yet!
You’re not a widow yet!
You’re not a widow yet!
You’re not a widow yet!
So this one’s for the critics and their disappointed mothers
For the cupid and the hunter shooting arrows at each other
Ain’t no such thing as a saint,
Ain’t no such thing as a sinner, oh
There’s a swan among the pigeons of Barcelona’s floor
There’s a Samson with Delilahs lining up outside the door
If you are sharpening your scissors
I am sharpening my scissors,
And I am sharpening my sword
So you can take me to the dragon’s lair
Or you can take me to Rapunzel’s windowsill
Either way it is time for a bigger kind of kill…
A bigger kind of kill.
Oh I see your face when I close my eyes
Oh I see the muscles in your legs from the way you always rise
To the occasion of catching things that fall
Like the statuettes on pedestals I tend to build too tall.
But I have navigated Iceland
I’ve laid my claim on Portugal
I have seen into the wasteland
Oh the future
Oh the future of us all.
i kicked up a whole country
of dead, dead leaves last fall
i kicked up a whole country
of dead, dead leaves last fall
Dead leaves
Dead leaves
Dead leaves
Dead leaves
Seen from the back of a train
I rode away from your station
They drifted in the air
Like memoirs of old conversations
Sprung from a leather case
You opened in the wind
To watch the papers chase each other
Into oblivion
(You’re such a champion
You’re such a champion
I hide behind your sun
You are the champion) x3
So you can take me to the dragon’s lair
You can take me to Rapunzel’s windowsill
Either way it is time, oh it is time
For a bigger kind of kill…
A bigger kind of kill
A bigger kind of kill (x10)
A bigger kind of kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
A bigger kind of kill (x3)
A bigger kind of kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
Lyrics submitted by tjwells, edited by darkforce100
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One aspect of this seems to be a bitter observation of humanity's urge to destroy that which is beautiful ("the swan among the pigeons of Barcelona's floor") and fantastic (the medieval quest imagery as well as the more personal whimsies of the narrator who claims to be 'blinded by confetti'). Note the contrast of album title with song title - Dragonslayer versus Dragon's Lair and the ambiguous, slurred way in which Krug sings "dragon's lair".
To me, it's as if he's sarcastically saying 'oh you fcking hero' ("you're SUCH a champion") to a medieval-esque dragonslayer, ridiculing the assumption that dragons are there to be slain (in western mythology/fantasy) and by extension despairing over the expected and the conventions in life.
He suggests humanity is absorbed in "a bigger kind of kill"; a destructive mentality which continues endlessly like the line itself and into an "oblivion" we cannot escape from, or do not wish to. While associations with humanity's physical destruction of the environment are certainly arguable, it seems that Krug is trying less to point out physical destruction and more to reject rationalism's destruction of mental refuges in the fantastic. Perhaps the greater truths those found in emotion and imagination? Either way he refuses to bind himself to the reality he finds himself in.