There's a prayer for the living and the dying
There's a prayer to soothe the savage sea
There's a prayer, it seems, for almost everything
But you haven't got a prayer for me
And I, I haven't got a prayer
So many cries in the night that you try to ignore
Why didn't I do that? Why didn't I do this?
So many unbroken chains, so many unsettled scores
The old men at the bank that sneers, the teachers and their slaps
The brutal eyes in uniforms, the lawyers and their traps
The lonely girls who yearn to love and learn to kiss and dance
The rich and selfish widows in the market for romance
The soldiers with the smell of war that never fades away
The heroes on the playing field forgotten in a day
For the priest in the confessional
The trembling hands and whispered sighs
The doctors at the hospital, unending tests and twisted lies
The betrayers, the betrayed, the abandoned, the afraid
The corrupted and the celebrated, endlessly humiliated
Gloriously big parade
You can say a prayer for everyone that there could ever be
Say a prayer for all of these and more
But there's still no prayer for me
Say a prayer for your purest daughter
Toll a bell for your only son
There's no way out
And all my prayers are fading one by one
The stern and disapproving lips, the friends who just attack
The fathers that they take away, the ones that can't get back
The desperate boy who sleeps alone, whoever's in his bed
The chosen ones they get a home, the blessed get ahead
The kids out playing softball in the fading summer night
The teenage lovers at the drive-in, the glow of the dashboard light
An American flyer on a steep incline
The wind blowing through your hair
The trophies and the holidays, they vanished in the air
The betrayers, the betrayed, the abandoned, the afraid
The glorified, the idolized, the bastards and their jealous eyes
An amazingly big parade
You can say a prayer for everyone you've known or you might see
Say a prayer for all of these and more
But there's still no prayer for me
Say a prayer for every living thing, the unborn and deceased
But I haven't got a prayer I know
That's the nature of the beast
That's the nature of the beast
