Burn This Town

You could burn this town to the ground,
Spread salt on the smokin’ ground,
All around this town.
And when the rains come a-tumblin’ down,
They might move it around,
But there ain’t no keepin’ down,
What is wrong with this town.

And you cannot burn or wash away.
You can’t depend upon slow decay.
You can’t picket fence or quarantine.
It’s in the wells,
Hell, I think it’s in the genes.

I saw a ghost by the light of the moon.
He was goose-stepping beneath
The harvest moon with his transparent platoon.
But he weren’t just some redneck cartoon.
He was a midnight crusader,
A Sunday School teacher,
He works out every afternoon.

First he moved to the West Bank,
And then East L.A.
Then he moved to the foothills,
Of Easton, PA.
And he’ll move into your town
And you won’t even know.
He’s got a good credit rating.
He’s white as the pure driven snow.

Two old soldiers met
On that Hades-bound road,
And they looked at each other,
The enemy brother,
Then they spoke in moral codes.
The first one said,
“Before I explode,
I’ll find peace in all this
Even if it exists just in the moment
It takes to reload.”

And then the second one,
Lit up his last Lucky Strike,
And he remembered the Death March,
And Eichman and Ike.
Then they both turned around,
And without any sound,
They descended on down,
And they burned that town to the ground.

You could burn this town to the ground,
Spread salt on the smokin’ ground,
All around this town.
And when the rains come a-tumblin’ down,
They might move it around,
But there ain’t no keepin’ down,
What is wrong with this town.

And you cannot burn or wash away.
You can’t depend upon slow decay.
You can’t picket fence or quarantine.
It’s in the wells,
Hell I think it’s in the genes.

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