[Verse 1]
I rode out of Babylon with the taste of blood and rust,
Neon crucifix burning on a dashboard made of dust,
The radio preached salvation in a dead man’s baritone,
While the rear-view showed the angels turning every promise into stone.
Six white horses pulling nothing down a cracked and bleeding line,
Every mile another grave for the things I left behind.

[Verse 2]
The desert swallowed mercy like a drunkard drinks the dark,
I traded my tomorrow for a cigarette and spark,
Heard the devil dealing seconds from the back seat of my mind,
Said “Son, your soul’s on layaway, but the interest is unkind.”
So I floored it through the silence where the lost horizons meet,
With the pedal and the prayer both screaming under bleeding feet.

[Pre-Chorus]
And the night leaned in close, whispered low:
“Boy, you can’t outrun the ghosts you already know…”

[Chorus]
I will burn this whole damn highway down tonight!
Set the rear-view mirror blazing in the fire of the fight!
If the sky won’t open, I’ll tear it wide with sound,
Till the ashes of the last crusade rain holy on the ground!
I’m done with begging mercy from a throne that never was,
Gonna love this broken world until it remembers what it does!

[Verse 3]
Somewhere past the wreckage where the prophets lost their nerve,
I saw her standing barefoot on the center-line curve,
Eyes like dying galaxies, smile like a switchblade kiss,
She said “Darlin’, every end of the world is the start of something we missed.”
So I took her trembling hand and we danced on broken glass,
While the engines of the heavens howled and the moment wouldn’t pass.

[Guitar Solo Break]
(90-second Satriani/Floyd inferno: screaming legato over delayed Gilmour walls, orchestral hits, thunderous toms)

[Bridge – half-time, spoken/sung, almost whispered at first]
All the kings and all their soldiers,
All the preachers and their lies,
Couldn’t chain one single heartbeat
When it decides to rise…

[Final Chorus – full apocalypse]
I will burn this whole damn highway down tonight!
Let the choir of the engines and the angels scream in flight!
If forever won’t have me, I’ll carve my name in flame,
And love this dying world until it learns to speak my name!
Through the ashes of the last crusade we’ll rise,
Two silhouettes on fire beneath redeeming skies!

[Outro – instruments collapse into echoing piano and a single bending Satriani note held for 20 seconds, then silence]