[Intro: sludgy guitar, slow drums] [Verse 1: two voices in harmony] Candle in a basement, Writing on the back of a map, Mamba Point, the power's out, And Sarge is on the sandbags, snoring, That's how I know we're all right. [Verse 2] A couch across the road, Oil drums and a burned-out car, A boy in a blonde wig and pink sunglasses, A barrel hot under my eye. "Give me your watch." "I don't have a watch." "Then give me your life." [Chorus: heavy] Shut up and bleed, Shut up and bleed, He put me on his back And said, "Johnny, shut up and bleed." [Verse 3] I brought my rifle up and shot him through the door, His sunglasses came off, And his eyes were brown, I saw them, they were brown. [Verse 4] Two miles through a city on fire, Through a graveyard and somebody's house, In the front door and out the back, Past a family on the floor, And the Marines saw two old men coming up the hill, And they opened the gate. [Chorus: heavy] Shut up and bleed, Shut up and bleed, He put me on his back And said, "Johnny, shut up and bleed." [Bridge: quiet, one voice] How do you carry them? All of them, all these years? "You don't. You just walk. They're on your back and you walk." Does it get lighter? [Instrumental break: no answer] [Verse 5: both voices] I'm never going to be able to pay it back, There's no way to pay back a thing like that, Sarge has had my watch for twenty-six years, And the watch joke wasn't a joke. [Final Chorus: heaviest] Shut up and bleed, Shut up and bleed, He put me on his back And said, "Johnny, shut up and bleed." [Outro: feedback, fade] [End]
