Lightning Bolts lyrics

Two lightning bolts were delivered to my room,

They were gifts from Zeus.

I rock the bolts in a bassinet of pine.

People ask me how I am,

I say I’m all right, I’m fine.

I push the lightning bolts in a pram,

Till the sun goes down and it gets dark,

And the girls from Jubilee Street hang out their windows,

And they wave and ask me how I am tonight.

I say I’m good, I’m all right.

In Athens all the youths are crying from the gas.

I’m by the hotel pool working on a tan.

People come up and ask me who I am.

I say if you don’t know, don’t ask.

Zeus laughs – but it’s the gas.

And he asks me how I am.

I say Zeus, don’t ask.

My lightning bolts are jolts of joy,

They are joy boys from Zeus.

I feed them porridge in their booster seats of knowledge.

And in the cradle of democracy, the pigeons are wearing gas masks.

My lightning bolts play in the elevators,

They slide down the hotel banister,

And Zeus throws a gas canister,

And it spins around the pool,

As pigeons wearing respirators steal the lightning bolts.

Zeus wants them back.

O my bolts of joy,

O my darling little boys.

They are lost to us.

And people...

They are never coming back.

At night I watch them sleep,

And cry years of tears,

And it’s not the gas.

People ask me how we are

We are, I say, mostly lost.

• Artist:Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
• Album:Push the Sky Away (2013)