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 have no future, we have no past
We're just drifting ghosts of glass
Brown sugar, ice in our veins
No pressure, no pain
Everybody looks the same to me
Rows and rows of faces on the balcony
I can hear them calling down to me
Come up here, set us free
Got sugar in our brains
Or a dagger in our hearts
This is not my home, no
Everyone's bought and sold
This is not my home
Everybody's walking round the dead and cold
One by one, by one we disappear
Day after day and year after year
You are run about our wasted there
Nobody hears 'cause nobody cares
Put a dagger in my heart now
Cold here and I shudder and I shiver
I want to look twenty but I can't deliver
Pains in the heart
Ba-ba-bow-wow-wow-wow
It's cold in here
Can you hear my teeth a-chatter?
The time has come for all of us to scatter
Caution to the wind
Caution to the wind
Dagger in the heart
No
This is not my home, no
Everyone's bought and sold
This is not my home
Everybody's checking out the dead and cold
We have no future, we have no past
We're just drifting ghosts of glass
Brown sugar, ice in our veins
No pressure, no pain
No pressure, no pain
No pressure, no pain
No pressure, no shame
No pressure, no shame
No pressure, no shame
No pressure, oh float away
Nothing on earth could help me, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no, no, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no, no, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no, no
No, no, no, no, no
Nothing on earth, I said nothing on earth
I said, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, no
We're just drifting ghosts of glass
Brown sugar, ice in our veins
No pressure, no pain
Everybody looks the same to me
Rows and rows of faces on the balcony
I can hear them calling down to me
Come up here, set us free
Got sugar in our brains
Or a dagger in our hearts
This is not my home, no
Everyone's bought and sold
This is not my home
Everybody's walking round the dead and cold
One by one, by one we disappear
Day after day and year after year
You are run about our wasted there
Nobody hears 'cause nobody cares
Put a dagger in my heart now
Cold here and I shudder and I shiver
I want to look twenty but I can't deliver
Pains in the heart
Ba-ba-bow-wow-wow-wow
It's cold in here
Can you hear my teeth a-chatter?
The time has come for all of us to scatter
Caution to the wind
Caution to the wind
Dagger in the heart
No
This is not my home, no
Everyone's bought and sold
This is not my home
Everybody's checking out the dead and cold
We have no future, we have no past
We're just drifting ghosts of glass
Brown sugar, ice in our veins
No pressure, no pain
No pressure, no pain
No pressure, no pain
No pressure, no shame
No pressure, no shame
No pressure, no shame
No pressure, oh float away
Nothing on earth could help me, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no, no, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no, no, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no, no
No, no, no, no, no
Nothing on earth, I said nothing on earth
I said, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, no
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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Improvised, stream-of-consciousness stuff. Not planned at all, but it still sounds pretty impressive. As Mark says:
'As I said on the album description the vocal was completely spontaneous, nothing actually written when I stepped up to the mike to do the take. I'd tried to write something down but to be honest I was struggling and decided to use a 'stream f consciousness' approach, which involved a litre of wine in a very dark vocal booth. We did about six takes all in all, each completely different, but I could tell from the Producer's voice on the intercom that we had something special. I'd placed a glass on the floor, in the dark, and during te takes I'd somehow broken it without realising and cut myself. The Producer and engineer couldn't see me so when it was finished they drew back the curtain and turned on the lights to find me covered in blood, they thought, I think, that I'd been mutilating myself in the name of method performance. I did nothing to kill the myth :-)'
I really think its about lonliness and feeling rejected and ostracized by society.
It's their most explicit lyrics about heroin, "Brown sugar, ice in our veins No pressure, no pain". A cautionary tale.
I think parts are about how their hometown doesn't feel like home anymore ("This is not my home") because so many have died ("Everybody's checking out the dead and cold").
It ends in desperation ("Nothing on earth could help me, no").
A cautionary tale and hard hitting. They're still my favourite band of all time, their music I always return to more than any other artist year after year, although this song isn't high up the list for me.