Lightning Bolts - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

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