Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
Lester Bangs and The Delinquents
A bird flew across the face of the son, and,
Man, you knew there was thunder in the Bronx.[2]
All in our cages with nowhere to run.
Do we even know what we want?
C'me on, brother, let's kill him again.
You wives don't ask us just where we've been.
If my sons gut him, they can then be men.
C'me on, children, let's kill him again.
Did you hear what he did to our girls.
And one cop said, "He's just a nerd.
Well I don't want that kind of nerd in my world."
Talked to the elders, and that's when I heard 'em say,
C'me on, brother, let's kill him again.
You wives don't ask us just where we've been.
If my sons gut him, they can then be men.
C'me on, children, let's kill him again.
A sacrifice is a small price to pay
just to feel right in our guts.
He'll just cost money to keep alive anyway.
My brother looked fearful, but I said "Let's!"
C'me on, brother, let's kill him again.
You wives don't ask us just where we've been.
If my sons gut him, they can then be men.
C'me on, children, let's kill him again.
My brother said, "Why do you reduce yourself?
Why do you become less than you're are?"
I said, "Sometimes I want to be a cinder.
That's the way I can touch the stars."
C'me on, brother, let's kill him again.
You wives don't ask us just where we've been.
If my sons gut him, they can then be men.
C'me on, children, let's kill him again.
Oooh, have mercy on the weak.
Give absolution or do not speak.
Our world's a wreckage about to sink,
and we are not at all what we've think.
Ah, shut up. Let's kill him again.
You wives don't ask us just where we've been.
If my sons gut him, they can then be men.
C'me on, boys, let's kill him again.
All right.
Ah, shut up. Let's kill him again.
You wives don't ask us just where we've been.
If my sons gut him, they can then be men.
C'me on, boys, let's kill him again.
APPEARS ON
Jook Savages On the Brazos, LP, CD
Track §8
LP: Live Wire Records, LW-3 (1981); CD: Moll Tonträger [GER], Moll 6 (1995); CD: re-issue: Live Wire Records, LW-20 (2009)
Birdland With Lester Bangs, LP, CD
Track §2
LP: Add On Records, AD#101 (1986); LP, CD reissue: Dionysus Records, Bacchus Archives 1118 (1998)
Note: The Birdland version of this song is arranged differently and contains minor variations to the lyrics.
The Other Vol. 2, Cassette
Track B §1
The Other cassette magazine #2 (1983)
Live Wire Compilation, Cassette
Track A §5
Live Wire Records, Trash Publishing, LW15 (1988)
Lester Bangs: Mégatonnique Rock Critic, 3x CD Boxed Compilation
Track CD1 §17
Tristram/Sony BMG Music Entertainment, France, 82876868972 (2006)
SOURCES
Transcription by Lester Bangs Archive management, 2013; Jook Savages on the Brazos CD reissue lyrics insert, 2009.
ABOUT THE LYRICS:
[1] One of Bangs's more tightly written narrative lyrics, "Kill Him Again" is a dramatic duologue: a poem written from two voices and two related points of view. Here, the duologic voices belong to a vengeful mob killer and his pacifist victim. Bangs claimed the song's killer perspective was inspired by the 1976 murders by David Berkowitz (a.k.a., Son of Sam), while the victim's perspective was influenced by Bangs's strict upbringing in the Jehovah's Witnesses.
[2] "thunder in the Bronx": These opening lines more than likely refer to the looters who set fire to parts of the Bronx during the 1977 blackout of New York City that began with a lightning strike. Bangs and friend Paul Nelson were sequestered to Nelson's apartment during the blackout, and the two witnessed the conflagration from the roof of the building.
Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
8800 Grossmont College Drive
El Cajon, California 92020
619-644-7000
Accessibility
Social Media Accounts
