I met my buddy Kovacs stripping down his M-16
He said "I think the barrel got hot -- know what I mean ?"
And his smiling mouth looked friendly
But his eyes, like all the dead, were strangers
All the dead were strangers
Just lying there were ladies so old they hardly bled
Thin kids who never needed a red hole in the head
We were all in this together
We were friends, but all the dead were strangers
All the dead were strangers
We bumped into Polonsky, and Polonsky hollered "Look!
It's a Japanese transistor that I swiped off of a gook
And it don't even have no batteries"
And he laughed that all the dead were strangers
All the dead were strangers
And Kovacs said "You crumb-dumb, we weren't sent in here to steal"
And Polonsky answered "Stow it! How do you know what I feel?
What the hell else is there in this
For me? Like, all the dead were strangers
All the dead were strangers"
I left them two to argue and I walked between the huts
It's a bad day when a king-hit of grass won't calm your guts
But it helps you to remember
Or forget that all the dead were strangers
All the dead were strangers
The birds that lift us in here lift us out through the same sky
And the gunships hose the ruins for reasons hell knows why
And I can only yell Why bother!
Why bother all the dead? They were strangers
All the dead were strangers
He said "I think the barrel got hot -- know what I mean ?"
And his smiling mouth looked friendly
But his eyes, like all the dead, were strangers
All the dead were strangers
Just lying there were ladies so old they hardly bled
Thin kids who never needed a red hole in the head
We were all in this together
We were friends, but all the dead were strangers
All the dead were strangers
We bumped into Polonsky, and Polonsky hollered "Look!
It's a Japanese transistor that I swiped off of a gook
And it don't even have no batteries"
And he laughed that all the dead were strangers
All the dead were strangers
And Kovacs said "You crumb-dumb, we weren't sent in here to steal"
And Polonsky answered "Stow it! How do you know what I feel?
What the hell else is there in this
For me? Like, all the dead were strangers
All the dead were strangers"
I left them two to argue and I walked between the huts
It's a bad day when a king-hit of grass won't calm your guts
But it helps you to remember
Or forget that all the dead were strangers
All the dead were strangers
The birds that lift us in here lift us out through the same sky
And the gunships hose the ruins for reasons hell knows why
And I can only yell Why bother!
Why bother all the dead? They were strangers
All the dead were strangers
×
![]()
Note for non-Italian users: Sorry, though the interface of this website is translated into English, most commentaries and biographies are in Italian and/or in other languages like French, German, Spanish, Russian etc.
Album: A King At Nightfall (1973)