Anthem for Doomed Youth

You're howling, abyss-eyed and broken.
You're perverted, ungracefully drunk.
But there's nobody left in the West these days
Wronged enough to be a punk.

Doomed youth, you're so beautiful.
You never learn to be suspicious of the stones
That look too precious to be true,
Like you, doomed youth.

The spit at the edge of your mouth,
The stain at the crotch of your jeans,
The three-inch bruise at the crook of your arm
That in the right light looks like Jesus.
The smirk you can't hide when you cry,
The care in the knot of your tie —
It's really not that hard to stay alive
When you're twenty-five.

Doomed youth.
Oh, doomed youth.
Oh, doomed youth.
Doomed youth.

Your party and your revolution,
Your grand designs and adorable dreams,
Your silverless palms and your list of demands
For concessions the world doesn't need.

Ah, doomed youth, you're too beautiful.
All your simplicities that you know they can't see
Like you can do, doomed youth.

And everything's different lately,
And it's all exactly the same.
We know secrets, and songs, and temptation;
We know how things burn when you don't watch the flame.
And the colours are hazy and faded,
The ideas given way to the names.
We are miners no more, never torn by a war,
Neither starving, nor struggling, nor credibly poor.

Oh, doomed youth.
Oh, doomed youth.
Oh, doomed youth.
My doomed youth.