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.
Nobody's making me say this
I'm talking to you
Been travelling 17 hours
Irradiated by signals, by images
of viruses, of virtues
like everyone
Like exiled angels we swing out of the clouds
Above night city-
Fields of light broken by the curve of dark waterways
On the other side of the world
an unhappy teenage girl sets fire
to herself, her house, her neighbourhood and some that dwell therein
Sorry simulacrum of sad dawn
You've never seen everything
Sleep of the just, sleep of reason, any damn kind of sleep please!
I'm trying to balance on a sloping bed in Naples
or is it Skopje? I forget
Through the thin hotel wall a man groans in his dreams
And on the other side of the world
the drug squad busts a child's birthday party
Puts bullets in the family dog and the blood goes all over the baby
And the Mounties are strip-searching schoolgirls
because they can
And a car crashes and burns on an offramp from the Gardiner
Two dogs in the back seat die, and in the front
a man and his mother
Forensics reveals the lady has pitchfork wounds in her chest -
Pitchfork!
And that the same or a similar instrument has been screwed to the dash
to make sure the driver goes too
You've never seen everything
I see:
A leader of the people with a ring in his nose
And the leaders of business tell him which way to go
With tugs on the golden chain which once led the golden calf
And we're supposed to be impressed with their success
But my mind goes blank before the unbelievable indifference
shown life
spirit
the future
anything green
anything just
Bad pressure coming down
Tears - what we really traffic in
ride the ribbon of shadow
Never feel the light falling all around
Years ago when my brother was in India
A small town baker got a bright idea
He cut his flour with pesticide
and sent a bunch of neighbours on their longest journey
He was just being cheap -trying to make a profit
Didn't even have shareholders to answer to
But it's worth remembering, as we sell off the forest
gene-splice the world's food into an instrument of control
maim and destroy as acts of theatre,
what came next -
That when the survivors looked around
and understood what had been done
they butchered
that baker
Snow swirls in the parking lot light like flour
like pesticide There's a trade war brewing - or at least that's the face they paint on it
But it's only more transnational manipulation
It's all bad magic and gangrene politics
Hormone disruptors and carcinogenetics
Greed twists eternal in the human breast
But the market has no brain
It doesn't love it's not God
All it knows is the price of lunch
Here I sit
Staring at my own shadow
Feeling my blood move
Trying not to have a drink
Trying to find somewhere to put the rage I'm carrying
Bad pressure coming down
Tears - what we really traffic in
ride the ribbon of shadow
Never feel the light falling all around
Never feel the light falling all around
You've never seen everything
I'm talking to you
Been travelling 17 hours
Irradiated by signals, by images
of viruses, of virtues
like everyone
Like exiled angels we swing out of the clouds
Above night city-
Fields of light broken by the curve of dark waterways
On the other side of the world
an unhappy teenage girl sets fire
to herself, her house, her neighbourhood and some that dwell therein
Sorry simulacrum of sad dawn
You've never seen everything
Sleep of the just, sleep of reason, any damn kind of sleep please!
I'm trying to balance on a sloping bed in Naples
or is it Skopje? I forget
Through the thin hotel wall a man groans in his dreams
And on the other side of the world
the drug squad busts a child's birthday party
Puts bullets in the family dog and the blood goes all over the baby
And the Mounties are strip-searching schoolgirls
because they can
And a car crashes and burns on an offramp from the Gardiner
Two dogs in the back seat die, and in the front
a man and his mother
Forensics reveals the lady has pitchfork wounds in her chest -
Pitchfork!
And that the same or a similar instrument has been screwed to the dash
to make sure the driver goes too
You've never seen everything
I see:
A leader of the people with a ring in his nose
And the leaders of business tell him which way to go
With tugs on the golden chain which once led the golden calf
And we're supposed to be impressed with their success
But my mind goes blank before the unbelievable indifference
shown life
spirit
the future
anything green
anything just
Bad pressure coming down
Tears - what we really traffic in
ride the ribbon of shadow
Never feel the light falling all around
Years ago when my brother was in India
A small town baker got a bright idea
He cut his flour with pesticide
and sent a bunch of neighbours on their longest journey
He was just being cheap -trying to make a profit
Didn't even have shareholders to answer to
But it's worth remembering, as we sell off the forest
gene-splice the world's food into an instrument of control
maim and destroy as acts of theatre,
what came next -
That when the survivors looked around
and understood what had been done
they butchered
that baker
Snow swirls in the parking lot light like flour
like pesticide There's a trade war brewing - or at least that's the face they paint on it
But it's only more transnational manipulation
It's all bad magic and gangrene politics
Hormone disruptors and carcinogenetics
Greed twists eternal in the human breast
But the market has no brain
It doesn't love it's not God
All it knows is the price of lunch
Here I sit
Staring at my own shadow
Feeling my blood move
Trying not to have a drink
Trying to find somewhere to put the rage I'm carrying
Bad pressure coming down
Tears - what we really traffic in
ride the ribbon of shadow
Never feel the light falling all around
Never feel the light falling all around
You've never seen everything
Lyrics submitted by Mellow_Harsher
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