Richard Ramirez Died Today Of Natural Causes

(album: Benji - 2014)

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
Having to pee 50 times a day is bad enough
Got a nagging 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 feeling 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