Lyrics Memento Mori - Patti Smith

Memento Mori

The fan whirling like the blades of a copter
Lifting into the skies above a foreign land
Fire and iron soaked with the bodies of so many friends
Johnny waved.
He was on his way home
He waved good-bye to his comrades in arms
And all the twisted things he had seen
He waved good-bye
And the blades hit something
Maybe just fate but the blades hit
The copter went up in flames
And Johnny never went marching home
They took his name and they carved it on a slab of marble
With several thousand other names
All the fallen idols
The apples of their mother’s eye
Just another name
Meanwhile back on the burning shore
Johnny’s comrades stood speechless
They looked with misbelieving eyes
Cause there were bits of metal and the embers
The embers of his eyes fanned out in the air
Black dust flames.
Oh Johnny
Someday they’ll make a movie about you
And in the making of that movie, some mad apocalypse
It will become even stranger than the simple act
Just a boy going up.
Up.
Up.
In flames the smoke
Just another life
Just another breath
And who’ll remember
Oh eternity now
As eternal as a sheet of marble
Eternal as a slab
On a green hill
And your name
And all your fallen brothers
And all the ones not cut
All the ones remembered
Only in the hearts
A mother a father a brother
A sister a lover son daughter
Young man shall not fade shall not fade
Your ancestors salute you greet you
And the gods of your ancestors salute you
Having been formed by the mind of your ancestors
The gods of your ancestors salute you
Having been formed by your ancestors
The gods of your ancestors salute you
They draw you in
They draw you through
They draw they draw you
Through that golden door
Come on boy
We remember you
We conceived you
We conceived of your breath
We conceived of the whole human race
And we conceived it to be a beautiful thing
Like a tulip bending in the wind
Sometimes it comes back to us
In the form of the hand filled with dust
Comes back in the form of a smitten child
Our raped daughters
The broken bones
Souls cleaved of hearts
They come back to us
Our hands are filled
With their rotting tissues
But we turn not our backs
We press our lips
Into their cancer
Into the dust
Into the remains of each one
And that love is there
And will greet you
Come on in boy
It’s eternal love
Well here go ahead
Run through that plane
Oh man running through your mind
You took a cat
You took a life
You took it by the tail
And you swirled it around your head
And you thrashed it
You smashed the life out of it
Then you knew that would be your own
But you wanted to feel the dying
Because you knew
You would feel your own
But you’re remembered
You’re remembered
You’re remembered good
We remember
Everything