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 never thought the taste of you
Would be the only thing to make me bleed
Why am I, so alive
While you lie still in the ground beneath me?
Fear of death the dark inside
Have become your only children
They're in front of you, watching you
Lost screams unholy dreams unrest
I laugh at your god as he's passing through
Slicing at your throat to warm my skin
Never thought it'd come to this
Fuck I've gone wrong no rest
Your children still call
Can't you hear them screaming out your name?
You've gone insane, they're in my head
They want you to, die in front of me, die in front of me
Thinking why me?
Wishing this was all a dream
Insanity, reality, you're going to
Die in front of me
Pestilence is here, death awaits, your body is not of Christ
It's my alter, helpless and alone, violate, enveloped in my skin
Faceless canvass, tearing all your flesh, bathed in blood
Violently regress, death's so endless, brutal is your pain
Anguish is a game, broken and afraid, god can't help you now
You'll wish your in hell, ghostly figures are always standing still
Are they mocking me, what do they see?
I didn't want your death to end so fast, but once you start, you cannot stop
I need it now, to fucking last, die in front of me
Die in front of me, thinking why me?
Wishing this was all a dream, insanity, reality
You're going to
Die in front of me, pestilence is here, death awaits
Your body is not of Christ
It's my alter, brutal is your pain, anguish is a game
Broken and afraid, god can't help you now
You'll wish your in hell, I never thought the taste of you
Would be the only thing to make me bleed, all alone in my
Funeral home, playing in blood there's just got to be
Something's wrong with me, draining veins, it's all the same
The torture in my head, it won't stop, until I am fucking dead
Pestilence is here, death awaits, your body is not of Christ
It's my alter, helpless and alone, violate, enveloped in my skin
Faceless canvass, tearing all your flesh, bathed in blood
Violently regress, death's so endless, brutal is your pain
Anguish is a game, broken and afraid, god can't help you now
You'll wish your in hell
Would be the only thing to make me bleed
Why am I, so alive
While you lie still in the ground beneath me?
Fear of death the dark inside
Have become your only children
They're in front of you, watching you
Lost screams unholy dreams unrest
I laugh at your god as he's passing through
Slicing at your throat to warm my skin
Never thought it'd come to this
Fuck I've gone wrong no rest
Your children still call
Can't you hear them screaming out your name?
You've gone insane, they're in my head
They want you to, die in front of me, die in front of me
Thinking why me?
Wishing this was all a dream
Insanity, reality, you're going to
Die in front of me
Pestilence is here, death awaits, your body is not of Christ
It's my alter, helpless and alone, violate, enveloped in my skin
Faceless canvass, tearing all your flesh, bathed in blood
Violently regress, death's so endless, brutal is your pain
Anguish is a game, broken and afraid, god can't help you now
You'll wish your in hell, ghostly figures are always standing still
Are they mocking me, what do they see?
I didn't want your death to end so fast, but once you start, you cannot stop
I need it now, to fucking last, die in front of me
Die in front of me, thinking why me?
Wishing this was all a dream, insanity, reality
You're going to
Die in front of me, pestilence is here, death awaits
Your body is not of Christ
It's my alter, brutal is your pain, anguish is a game
Broken and afraid, god can't help you now
You'll wish your in hell, I never thought the taste of you
Would be the only thing to make me bleed, all alone in my
Funeral home, playing in blood there's just got to be
Something's wrong with me, draining veins, it's all the same
The torture in my head, it won't stop, until I am fucking dead
Pestilence is here, death awaits, your body is not of Christ
It's my alter, helpless and alone, violate, enveloped in my skin
Faceless canvass, tearing all your flesh, bathed in blood
Violently regress, death's so endless, brutal is your pain
Anguish is a game, broken and afraid, god can't help you now
You'll wish your in hell
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
Light Up The Sky
Van Halen
Van Halen
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
This is my honest opinion, but almost if not all the songs on "World Painted Blood" are about serial killers.
And this one is so obviously about Jeffrey Dahmer, even about his childhood and his first murder.
Just saying I think that's exactly what this song is about.
Great great song. fav on the album. thanks dutchboys for the explanation
Great great song. fav on the album. thanks dutchboys for the explanation
I always thought it might have to do with the victim praying for God to save him. The song implies there is no God and therefore no heaven. So even Hell would be better than death/suffering . But it features the maniac killer's thoughts too. Like in the movie The Devil's Rejects when one of the killers (name eludes me) demands his victim to start asking God to smite him. God doesn't help, so the reject adds a little psychological torture to this murder and reminds the victim that he is all alone. But that is what the song speaks to me.
All of you guys have this thing very wrong, Kerry king himself said this song is about a child witnessing a murder happening in front of him. Just read the lyrics as if u were a child
All u guys are wrong look deeper into it its about a dude who lost his lover or someone close to him and hes going around chopping different body parts up to make the person that resembles that lost person he making his own doll
I love this song, it's in my opinion the only good track on world painted blood!
Let me be the first one to add a comment;
I think this song is about a murderer talking to himself and to his victim while he looks at him while he slowly kills him. Trying to get a grip while not knowing he does is real or not and doesn't know the difference between fantasy and reality. 'insanity, reality thinking why me' shows the killer speaking out the thoughts of it's victim. 'Playing in blood there's got to be something wrong with me' is, I think, the killer doubting if what he doing is alright 'Faceless canvas ripping all your flesh' says in my opinion how the killer rips all of the victims skin and making him unrecognisable. 'your body's not of christ, it's my altar' tells of the killer feeling that he thinks that he 'owns' his victim, he possesses it somehow he thinks it's his own. And where he says to his victim 'you wish you where in hell' says enough; hell is less a less worse place to be then where the victim is at this time according to the killer.
The whole song is about someone getting killed and the murderer somehow referring to it.
This song follows the song about Chikatilo, the 'Rostov Ripper', Russia's most notorious serial killer. And I think it is in some way an extension of that theme, but the references to 'not of Christ ... my altar ... you'll wish you were in hell ... God can't help you now' don't gel with Chikatilo. Perhaps it is Dahmer, but I don't know much about him.<br /> <br /> There are definitely other parallels to Chikatilo, in fact every lyric that isn't religious points to his endless pursuit of release with the death of his victims. Maybe its an amalgam of several killers, or just on killer.<br /> <br /> 'Die in front of me' is what made me think of Chikatilo in particular; he murdered a mother in front of her daughter.