Route 91

With thanks to Bob Dylan

The crowd was there to party and feel all right
Dancing for hours in the hot desert night
The mics were hot on stage, the floor a mile wide
The biggest dance in Vegas, the neon was so bright
You couldn’t see the muzzle flash but you could hear the gun
It was all over but the screaming, there was nowhere to run
We saw it happen down on Route 91.

We saw all the pictures of the bodies and the blood
Red-and-blues screaming through the neighborhood
The preachers call for fire and the scientists for flood
Prayers came too late to do any damn good
You know some daddy’s daughter and some poor mother’s son
Knelt down in the cross-hairs and felt the kiss of a gun
Fifty-nine bodies laid out along Route 91.

No criminal record, no warning signs before
A dozen rifles found behind a locked hotel door
Broken windows that overlook the killing floor
The dancers never guessed that horror was in store
They looked up and thought they saw the rising sun
It was flashing from the muzzle of a murderer’s gun
It’s not the road to Mandalay, it’s just Route 91.

Country music lovers, country music bands
Country shocked to silence by thunder from the hand
Of somebody who yesterday was just a normal man
Flags that fly at half-mast all across the land
How many times d'you want this killing done
Before we learn our lesson and bury all our guns
Out on the highway they call Route 91?

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside