Description[]
From Jim Steinman's script: "While BAAL sings, the TRIBE is formed from all sides. All the other 19 members of the TRIBE enter the stage from 'tunnels.' First a Boy and a Girl come from opposite sides of the disc. They come and kneel next to each other in the center of the disc. The Boy stares at her, then raises his arm high into the air and brings it smashing down on her body. She clutches at his flesh. In essence, then, they inflict pain on each other at first...then they embrace desperately and sensuously. They 'bring each other into the TRIBE.' Then they go and bring forth a third and perform and initiation ritual on him, always consisting of a cruel painful act, then a coming-together. Then those three bring in a forth, etc. until all 19 are there by the end. The first part of the song is sung by BAAL alone, then he is joined by other voices, and finally the whole TRIBE at the end. All staging is violent, sexual, and often exultant, rising to a high pitch of dark celebration at the end when the TRIBE is bound together."
Versions[]
Jim Steinman in the musical The Dream Engine
Jim Steinman in a live Warner Records audition session for the musical The Dream Engine
Meat Loaf and Cian Coey on Braver Than We Are (as "Skull of Your Country")
Similar Songs[]
This song shares some lyrical and musical elements ("turn around, bright eyes") with "Total Eclipse of the Heart."
Lyrics[]
Come, in the night, come in the day
Anytime, and play our game
It's all right
Special flight
You'll fly home into our game
See the light
Shining bright
Shining down upon our game
In the night
Come in the day
Play our game, come away!
Turn around!
It's a black day dawning
Turn around!
There's a corpse in mourning
Turn around!
In your tin can graveyard
Turn around!
To your tin foil savior
Turn around, bright eyes!
Turn around, bright eyes!
Turn around!
There are napalm babies screaming
Turn around!
There are rivers steaming
Turn around!
To your forests rotting
(alt: "'cause the sun is rotting")
Turn around!
To your assassins plotting
(alt: "can't you feel sweet Satan plotting")
Turn around, bright eyes!
Turn around, bright eyes!
Don't let the slaughter drag you down
Who ever said that madness was a sin?
It's too late for the rain to wash you down
Who ever killed the ocean and the wind?
Down on your knees, now. What do you see now?
Down on your knees, now. What do you see now?
How do you bury the skull of your country?
How do you bury a nation of fears?
Where do you put all your long years of dying?
Give me a tombstone and a wreath of all your tears
Bring in all the children, with their bodies up against the wall
No time for crying and there's no time left to stall
No time for love now and there's no peace left at all
We're on the edge now, and there's always one more fall
(alt: "We're on the edge now, and it won't be me that falls")
Turn around!
For the blood on your highways
Turn around!
Fuck up with a new war each day, now
Turn around!
For your skies are hungry
Turn around!
For your earth is thirsty
Turn around, bright eyes
Turn around, bright eyes
Turn around!
Let a new world in, now
Turn around!
Let the final dance begin, now
Turn around!
Give us all your guns, now
Turn around!
Look at us! We're your outlaw sons, now
Turn around, bright eyes
Turn around, bright eyes
Don't let the slaughter drag you down
Who ever said that madness was a sin?
It's too late for the rain to wash you down
Who ever killed the ocean and the wind?
Down on your knees, now. What do you see now?
Down on your knees, now. What do you see now?
How do you bury the skull of your country?
How do you bury a nation of fears?
Where do you put all the long years of dying?
Give me a tombstone and a wreath of all your tears
Come, in the night, come in the day
Anytime, and play our game
It's all right
Special flight
You'll fly home into our game
See the light
Shining bright
Shining down upon our game
In the night
Come in the day
Play our game, come away!