Roses For The Damned

Janis Ian

One too many gone, one too many died
All my heroes have been silenced
All the young men marching off in two-four time
Dance to that righteous killer's cadence

One too many gone, laying wasted in the sand
Death's got no feeling for the brave
Crazed men hustling selling guns and ammunition
Bear your rifle, bear your burden, save your children

Mothers raise their sons for the sacrifice
Babies carry guns and dream of paradise
Nectar and roses and soft dark Arabian nights
Dying for water, and no oasis in sight

No mean day dream bridal magazine
promises to wave a magic wand
Advertising confidence, fourteen lesson eloquence
Will teach you how to live beside the bomb

High school fools rule, foam from the mouth
Keep you 'til you're old enough to buy
Teachers talk of temperance, allegiance to coincidence
snd documents to recompense your pride

No one calls on you to live, no one calls you to die
No one sends roses to crazy old ladies who lie
in dark dusty rooms the size of a small foreign car
Sometimes you wonder where all the good people are

Strangers walk the streets in the summer heat
Tempers shorter than a baby's dryness
Stepping on your shoes, leaving mind and body bruised
Ain't it easy now to kill someone for kindness

It'd make a man of any man who's old enough to cry
Surely make a loser feel at home
Blessings on the children of the city when they die
One more overpopulation gone

You cannot walk the streets no more, or live in town
I always thought there'd be somewhere to crawl
when the sky fell down
I'm watching my horizon exploding
like a spring too tightly wound
Silence is the only sound

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