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.
Don't look back, nothing's left but the blood-red text on the planet Earth's epitaph:
Here they lie, the human race.
They fucked themselves, and laid Earth waste.
Blind to the fact that the bomb was coming down,
Their sanity was sold for a beggar's hand-out.â??
What they got is what they made,
The final act of this tragedy ends with pain.
So drunk with power, they sit laughing at ground zero
One more drink, push a button, and let the fuckers go.
It's a drama, it's a game, and lastly, it's a joke.
What's left for the ones who never had a chance to know
That the powers inside are driven with the lust to fight
So they hand us their lies, and say it's gonna be alright.
But the truth to it is, they tax us just to kill ourselves.
And our very own bombs will blow us all to hell
Reckless, our neglect multiplies,
The children of a cold war left behind.
Come and see the doctor, Strangelove is here.
No other superpower means nothing to fear.
Who needs a fucking treaty, when we got guns.
Fuck the little countries, lets have some fun.
Thinking back to where we came from,
We can see how far we've come.
But the price of our intentions
Burns us like the heat on the surface of the sun.
Who can know what foul intentions
Start inside the human mind?
For only the proud human being could conjure up
A plan to obliterate his kind.
The flash of light was quick to blind me,
Much like the lies they told me before.
So naive, we thought it was all over
But history returns with another world war.
Here they lie, the human race.
They fucked themselves, and laid Earth waste.
Blind to the fact that the bomb was coming down,
Their sanity was sold for a beggar's hand-out.â??
What they got is what they made,
The final act of this tragedy ends with pain.
So drunk with power, they sit laughing at ground zero
One more drink, push a button, and let the fuckers go.
It's a drama, it's a game, and lastly, it's a joke.
What's left for the ones who never had a chance to know
That the powers inside are driven with the lust to fight
So they hand us their lies, and say it's gonna be alright.
But the truth to it is, they tax us just to kill ourselves.
And our very own bombs will blow us all to hell
Reckless, our neglect multiplies,
The children of a cold war left behind.
Come and see the doctor, Strangelove is here.
No other superpower means nothing to fear.
Who needs a fucking treaty, when we got guns.
Fuck the little countries, lets have some fun.
Thinking back to where we came from,
We can see how far we've come.
But the price of our intentions
Burns us like the heat on the surface of the sun.
Who can know what foul intentions
Start inside the human mind?
For only the proud human being could conjure up
A plan to obliterate his kind.
The flash of light was quick to blind me,
Much like the lies they told me before.
So naive, we thought it was all over
But history returns with another world war.
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