Everyday in the paper you can watch the numbers rise,
no such event can over take us here, we're much too wise
in the meantime don't eat anything that grows and don't breathe when the cars go by
ain't it a shame
ain't it a shame
about the radium rain

Big motorcycle rumbles out of the rain like some creation of mist.
there's a man on a roof with a blindfold on and a hand grenade in his fist.
i walk stiff, with teeth clenched tight, filled with nostalgia for a clean wind's kiss.
ain't it a shame
ain't it a shame
about the radium rain.

A flock of birds writes something on the sky in a language i can't understand.
God's graffiti -- but it don't say why so much evil seems to land on man
when everyone i meet just wants to live and love, and get along as best they can.
ain't it a shame
ain't it a shame
about the radium rain.

(Cologne, May 8, 1986.)