The News from Pompeii

The news from Pompeii isn't any good,

A black cloud over every neighborhood;

I just can't watch tv anymore,

Body counts rise like baseball scores.

There's nowhere to go so the slaves go free,

Their footprints cast for eternity;

I look at a world turned to ash,

And there's nothing to do but to lie the grass.

Wasn't there a girl in Herculaneum,

Haven't seen her since the Colosseum;

Haven't heard nothing, hope she's fine,

Maybe tomorrow I'll drop her a line.

The news from Pompeii -- just turn it off,

The experts scream and the pundits scoff,

You can smell the sulfur in the heat,

Feel the ground shake under your feet.

And I'm starting to miss the old routine,

Being a cog in the big machine;

And all those things that have just disappeared,

What'll they say in two thousand years?

Apollo's place is deep in the oaks,

He was good to me, he laughed at my jokes;

The key's in the mailbox they all heard him shout,

Now he's up on Olympus ridin' it out.

The news from Pompeii, when will it change,

The times are dark and the times are strange;

I long for the snows, I long for the rains,

I long for the days of golden chains.