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.
Where the river runs to black
I take the schoolbooks from your pack
Plastics, wire and your kiss
The breath of eternity on your lips
In the crowded marketplace
I drift from face to face
I hold my breath and close my eyes
I hold my breath and close my eyes
And I wait for paradise
And I wait for paradise
The Virginia hills have gone to brown
Another day another sun going down
I visit you in another dream
I visit you in another dream
I reach and feel your hair
Your smell lingers in the air
I brush your cheek with my fingertips
I taste the void upon your lips
And I wait for paradise
And I wait for paradise
I search for you on the other side
Where the river runs clean and wide
Up to my heart the waters rise
Up to my heart the waters rise
I sink 'neath the water cool and clear
Drifting down, I disappear
I see you on the other side
I search for the peace in your eyes
But they're as empty as paradise
They're as empty as paradise
I break above the waves
I feel the sun upon my face
I take the schoolbooks from your pack
Plastics, wire and your kiss
The breath of eternity on your lips
In the crowded marketplace
I drift from face to face
I hold my breath and close my eyes
I hold my breath and close my eyes
And I wait for paradise
And I wait for paradise
The Virginia hills have gone to brown
Another day another sun going down
I visit you in another dream
I visit you in another dream
I reach and feel your hair
Your smell lingers in the air
I brush your cheek with my fingertips
I taste the void upon your lips
And I wait for paradise
And I wait for paradise
I search for you on the other side
Where the river runs clean and wide
Up to my heart the waters rise
Up to my heart the waters rise
I sink 'neath the water cool and clear
Drifting down, I disappear
I see you on the other side
I search for the peace in your eyes
But they're as empty as paradise
They're as empty as paradise
I break above the waves
I feel the sun upon my face
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Its certainly not about any individual suicide bomber, and its not an account of any suicide bomber's experiences - how would Bruce Springsteen know about that?
Its an incredibly emotional song, the kind Springsteen does best. There is a girl involved but it is hard to tell who, the line "i take the schoolbooks from your pack" made me think his daughter, but he then talks of her lips so maybe its his girlfriend or lover.
He is comparing the real and concrete experience of this girl - her humanity, her lips, her hair, her smell, her touch to the abstract, ideological thought of paradise. How could someone give up an experience of paradise on earth, such as love, to try and find the promised paradise which supposedly awaits after death.
At the end of another day (see references to the myth of sysiphus in The Rising) he has a dream (the water is a metaphor for the dream state) about the same girl, in which he and her are together in paradise - but this time, as they are both dead, there is no humanity in her, there is a void in her lips and her eyes are as empty as the paradise they have found. The song ends as he wakes up from the dream ("I break upon the waves") and returns to life with the sun on his face - aren't we in the only paradise we will ever find on planet earth? Can we not see feelings of love and humanity towards and from other people are the closest we will get to heaven. Can we not learn to love each other? Beautiful song, even more so in the wake of the events which inspired it.