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.
Decrepit ruins, an ancient fane in disarray
Rivers of cadaverine snake below obsidian palisades
Bathed in an ill moonlight, igneous spires breaching the louring sky
Resident to dark terrors both malevolent and unseen
Haunted through the heart of darkness
by horrors unknown
A nightmare that never subsides
wading through wastelands of bone.
Sojourn in galleries of anguish searching for wisdom's elusive pearl
lost in a lonesome city, witness the last gasp of a dying world
statues lie broken, shattered in conflicts fought long ago
roots reaching into black trenches
reclaiming the earth from the stone
The rancour in it's construction outlived it's architects
Labyrinthine and monolithic, hallowed hall of the dead
City of shades, a pale reflection of it's past glory
where the dead ever roam in the crumbling halls
now entombed by their greed delving far too deep
down where fiends never sleep and the light can't reach
twisted creatures rend and flay, draped in skins in their sick masquerade
flesh stripped victims to discard, butchered for amusement in this cursed abattoir
Dank baneful chasms, caliginous and bare
where hope is exiguous, all are prone to despair
where the ill-fated wander in the land of the Pod
ever crawling in circles beaten back by a dense freezing fog.
Rivers of cadaverine snake below obsidian palisades
Bathed in an ill moonlight, igneous spires breaching the louring sky
Resident to dark terrors both malevolent and unseen
Haunted through the heart of darkness
by horrors unknown
A nightmare that never subsides
wading through wastelands of bone.
Sojourn in galleries of anguish searching for wisdom's elusive pearl
lost in a lonesome city, witness the last gasp of a dying world
statues lie broken, shattered in conflicts fought long ago
roots reaching into black trenches
reclaiming the earth from the stone
The rancour in it's construction outlived it's architects
Labyrinthine and monolithic, hallowed hall of the dead
City of shades, a pale reflection of it's past glory
where the dead ever roam in the crumbling halls
now entombed by their greed delving far too deep
down where fiends never sleep and the light can't reach
twisted creatures rend and flay, draped in skins in their sick masquerade
flesh stripped victims to discard, butchered for amusement in this cursed abattoir
Dank baneful chasms, caliginous and bare
where hope is exiguous, all are prone to despair
where the ill-fated wander in the land of the Pod
ever crawling in circles beaten back by a dense freezing fog.
Lyrics submitted by TheImpalerTMX
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