Raise your can of beer on high
And seal your fate forever
Our best years have past us by
The golden age of leather
This was the night not long to come in the year of our Lord A.D.
Where in a desert way-house, poised on the brink of eternity
Four and ninety studded horsemen closed the knot of honor
As only drunken soldiers can
And passed from man to man, a wanton child to dead to care
That each would find his pleasure as he might
For this fantastic night was billed as nothing less than the end of
An age
A last crusade, a final outrage, in this day of flacid plumage
And there was worn no cloth but leather
Made supple by years of stinging cinders
And here were seen the scars of age
For age had been the common call for one last night together
Down colored the sky (the ritual feast)
Some had died (they were buried with their bikes)
Each grabbed a rag (from a man with a sack)
Torn strips of color (the red and the black)
We made a vow to give it all we had to give
We made a vow to die as we had lived
They flew the colors, they began to fight
They flailed at each other like bugs at a light
Bodies and bikes beyond repair
Smell of oil and gas in the air
Then the wind whipped the desert with a giant hand
And the humans and the Harleys caught the shifting sand
And the old ranger weathered the storm
And he topped the rise by the middle of morn
He saw rippled dunes, calm and surreal
And a glint of a shaft of chromium steel
Golden age…
I can't believe how great this band is. I keep listening to random songs by then and I haven't been disappointed even once. The best intelligent hard rock band of the 70's ?? THIS band along with THIN lizzy are my two faves
And "a solitary shaft of chromium steel." Buck's the best. He's still humble after all these years. Don't know if I could handle it all with the same class he's maintained. A vanguard of the heaviest. A flesh-and-blood realist who writes about emotional situations and experiences. Top flight in my book.
Anyone who takes the time to explore past Godzilla and Don't Fear the Reaper will come away amazed! Funny thing about Blue Oyster Cult: if I were to try to put together a top ten song list, I would give up after three hours. They have so many superb songs.
I don't care what anyone says, but this track soars waaaay above most so-called "great" rock songs that the "music experts" usually mention. There ain't much that can compare to this.
This is BOC songwriting and performance at it's peak. All of the classic elements of BOC fall into each song section. This song was a centerpiece of BOC's live performance for most of the late seventies.
This was on the set list this past January in Milwaukee. My wife had never heard it before, but me and the other 498 people in attendance held our drinks up high and sang along in near perfect harmony