I think I’ve seen this one before
The camera pans out to the skyline of New York
Cut to a waitress down on her luck
And too unrealistically pretty to work in that kind of dump
In walks a handsome man, kind and aloof
Who screen-tested well with women: 18 to 32
But when he says something he didn’t mean to say
He’ll have to go running to the airport in the pouring rain
But there’s a glitch in this reality
Because you know how it ends
After there’s enough B-Roll footage
And money left for advertising
So as the cast and crew go home
Get the editors on the phone
The studio said to wrap this one up
The director calls, “cut!”

Because love hurts
Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard
Every bridge built ends up getting burned
But it seems less like reality than dreams
Because no alarm can wake you up from that deep a sleep

But in the 70’s there was still crime in the city
Long before it was gentrified and made to look pretty
Back when Sid and Nancy stunk up the punk clubs
Screaming their lungs out, banging heads, shooting-up drugs
But heroin doesn’t augur well with anger
At least not for some anarchistic, nihilistic teenager
But maybe there’s a reason Saint Valentine
Is synonymous with the massacre of 1929
Because in the end she was found dead
From a 5-inch blade in the Chelsea Hotel, 1978
And everyone swore that he did it
After all he was “Sid Fucking Vicious”
Though his knife didn’t match the description
The coroner drew the conclusion

That love hurts
Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard
And every bridge built ends up getting burned
But I swear nobody cares
They dive head-first into shallow water
Blinded by ardour

From loneliness or Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
Jane Austen died with no paramour by her bedside
While Anne Beverley tried to cure her son’s malady
With opioids procured from a dark, dirty alley
And Rockets Redglare could’ve been anywhere
But he vanished from the police suspect list
Even Romeo and Juliet don’t lie side by side
After a double suicide

Love hurts
Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard
Ask John Ritchie with the light bulb and the bright idea
But it prevails because memory fails
We bet against the odds and get shocked when we’ve lost

Love hurts
Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard
Ask poor Nauseating Nancy with the dark, dead eyes
But it seems more like reality than dreams
Because no alarm can wake you up from that deep a sleep