Stop the World

The panorama of the city is wrong

In fact the city seems to be gone

Burnin' rubber and smoke in my eyes

There's a flat burnin' junk-heap

For twenty square miles

They took it in the nuclear mine

Judging by this, they left nothing behind

Down in the bunkers in the crust of the earth

Now crouch the wealthy and the noble of birth

If I could a ride a train around the city

That holds this as our fate

I'd hide from electro-circuit central

To the shock inducer gate

Not forgetting the by-pass

Across the Washington hooks

Through the phones and desks and screens

Of the Kremlin's crook of crooks

There's some panel in a circuit board

A destination of the override

Scanning the wild wind

Blowing through the Berlin corridor

Spotlit in a palace, shielded from dust

Malfunction or not, the fail-safe is crux

So far away from us

Shakin' with the mystery tears

One lonely night in Ladbroke Grove

Far away in the deserts of Omaha!

They got it nailed down Swiss-tight

The bank notes of Europe

The emperors and kings

Curl in the autumn as the burning of leaves

And I've cleaned my black guitar