Lyrics

The Ballad of Joe Panic
[Verse 1]
In the kingdom of dust and of sapphire winds,
Lived a man with a crown made of bone and sins.
They called him Joe Panic, the prince of the flame,
But he trembled at water, and drowned in his name.
[Chorus]
Ohhh—Joe Panic, don’t go where the rivers flow,
You’ll sink like a dream in the undertow.
With a sky-born girl and a hunger so deep,
The stars weep red when he walks in his sleep.
[Verse 2]
His love was a woman carved out of the night,
With moons in her eyes and her kisses like fright.
She whispered of secrets the oceans had kept,
But Joe never listened—he howled and he slept.
[Bridge]
He wore twenty feet of his hair like a chain,
Dragging behind him through desert and rain.
He fed on the raw, the bleeding, the rare—
The meat of the gods, with a thousand-yard stare.
[Chorus]
Ohhh—Joe Panic, don’t gaze in the wishing well,
The shadows are watching, they know you too well.
Your crown is a promise that no man should keep,
Your queen rides comets while you sow your sleep.
[Verse 3]
The elders all warned of a curse in his veins,
That panic would spread where he carried his name.
One night he dove deep where he thought love had grown—
But found only mirrors and marrow and stone.
[Outro - slow, fading]
Now stars hang low where his kingdom once lay,
His hair forms rivers that flow the wrong way.
So heed this tale of the prince who could cry,
But never learned how to swim or to die...die....die....die....die..