Richard Ramirez Died Today Of Natural Causes

Richard Ramirez died today of natural causes

Got amped up on speed and broke into houses

Bludgeoned people to death wrote shit on their skin and left them

They finally got and he went to San Quentin

His last murder was south of San Francisco

A guy named Peter Pan from the town of San Mateo

The little girl in the tenderloin was his first

And in the laundry room he took a doll from her fist

His last days were at the Bristol hotel

Was reading Night Stalker when I went and rang the bell

The doorman buzzed, said, you’re just like them all

Gave me a key and a black cat led me down the hall

Had a flight today from Boston to Cleveland

Got a death in the family gotta do some grieving

Lost a relative and it’s eating me up

And I make them real bad and I need a little love

Richard Ramirez died today of natural causes

These things mark time and make us pause

And think about we were kids scared of taps on the window

What’s under the bed and what’s under the pillow

And the Jim Jones massacre got in our heads

And the TV headlines Elvis Presley's dead

And the Ayatollah Khomenei hostages

And Ronald Reagan dodging bullets

One day I'm gonna stroll through the old neighborhood

Rick Stan's my age, still lives with his mom

When he’s not in jail from innocent stalking

Writing bad checks and cocaine charges

Mark Denton had such a beautiful smile

Always sat on the porch passing the time

And drinking a beer and smoking a pack

Until one day poor Mark had a heart attack

My friend Ben's got a good job as an electrician

Sister married the poor shark Jim Evans

And my next door neighbors whom I love so

And they love me too, but they passed long ago

And if you walk just a few blocks down Stahl

There's a house that was the scariest of them all

A cute little palm with a sign "for sale"

But those Sexton’s kids, life was hell

And I’m telling the truth and if you don't believe

Pick up Lowell Cauffiel’s House of Secrets

Had to fly from Cleveland to SFO

I got 3 months off until my next show

Gonna spend time with my girl

Make a record this summer

Fix my kitchen up and hire a plumber

The headlines change so rapidly

Then I came to the studio to work on something pretty

Then I saw the news on James Gandolfini

While I was eating ramen and drinking green tea

The Soprano's guy died at 51

That’s the same age as the guy

Who’s coming to play drums

I don't like this getting older stuff

Havin' to pee 50 times a day is bad enough

Got a naggin’ prostate and I got a bad back

And when I fuck too much I feel like I'm gonna have a heart attack

I woke up today I saw the headlines

An airline crashed and 2 people died

And I'm at a barbecue in San Rafael

And everybody's drunk and feelin' pretty well

At 53 years Richard Ramirez died

But in ‘83 he was very much alive

He was the scariest killer in the band

He had a pentagram in the center of his hand

And everybody remember the paranoia

When he stalked the suburbs of Southern California

And everybody will remember where they were

When they finally caught the Night Stalker

And I remember just where I was

When Richard Ramirez died of natural causes