The city chews up clueless blues
Paints the views in no-man's news
Blades will fade from blood sport
The heroin's cut these fuses short
Smoke is rolled in colonial pink
Drink and frame this pain I think
I'm melting silver poles my dear
You beat your wings and then disappear
The moving scenes and pilot lights
Smithereens have got us scaling heights
Modern times come talk me down
The battle lines are drawn cross this town

Parisian boys without your names
Ghetto stones instead of chains
Talk 'em down cause it's up in flames
And nothing's changed
Parisian boys without your names
Riot like 1968 again
The days of rage, yeah nothing's changed
More pretty flames

In school I would just bite my tongue
And now your words they strike me dumb
The flags are false and they contradict
They point and click which wounds to lick
On avenues this Christian breeze
Turns us on to more needles please
Our eyes roll back and we beg for more
Rephrase this skin and then underscore
The case for war you spin and bleed
The cells you fill
screensavers feed
The girls you breed the soaps that you write
The graceless charm of your gutter snipes
The moving scenes and suburbanites
And smithereens got us scaling heights
Modern times come talk me down
The battle lines are drawn across this town

English boys without your names
Ghetto stones instead of chains
Hearts and minds and Us planes
Nothing's changed
And English boys without your names
Riot like the 1980's again
The days of rage, yeah nothing's changed
More pretty flames

Where do we go from here-ere