Beiru - Peter Sarstedt

With the green traffic light

On the wet shiny street

Hair looking like spilled crème de menthe

She stood framed by the night

A statue in white outside the blazing casino

And there stood I the complete anti hero

There stood I brilliantly alone

In Beirut that night gun shots cracked the heat

From Dan to Beshebaar with the passions running high

Many men willing to die

Now ran across the Middle East

And she was born a child of the Medina

Knowing well the back streets of the Lebanon

And Beirut crumbling stone by stone

Beirut crumbling stone by stone

Beirut crumbling stone by stone

Beirut

From the burning hotels to the Christian citadels

Or to the Palestinian line

We were hunted like beast

Through the blood hungry feast

And by the men from Damascus

And all I wanted was my fifty thousand

Got caught up in a tragic civil war

And I’ve been shot in the arm by some jumpie Jean Damme

Mistaken for a terrorist

And she ran to my side

Shouting «God will provide»

They gave me a white Mercedes

I said, «What has happened to my fifty thousand?»

She smiled in the back seat of this very car

And Beirut crumbling stone by stone

Beirut crumbling stone by stone

Beirut crumbling stone by stone

Beirut

And Beirut crumbling stone by stone

Beirut crumbling stone by stone

Beirut crumbling stone by stone

Beirut

With the green traffic light on the wet shiny street

Hair looking like spilled crème de menthe

She stood framed by the night

A statue in white outside the blazing casino

And there stood I the complete anti hero

And there stood I brilliantly alone