Lyrics Dime Store Mystery - 2020 Remaster - Lou Reed

He was lying banged and battered, skewered and bleeding
Talking crippled on the cross
Was his mind reeling and heaving hallucinating
Fleeing, what a loss

The things he hadn't touched or kissed
His senses slowly stripped away
Not like Buddha, not like Vishnu
Life wouldn't rise through him again

I find it easy to believe
That he might question his beliefs
The beginning of the last temptation
Dime story mystery

The duality of nature, Godly nature
Human nature splits the soul
Fully human, fully divine, and divided
The great immortal soul

Split into pieces, whirling pieces
Opposites attract
From the front, the side, the back
The mind itself attacks

I know this feeling, I know it from before
Descartes through Hegel, belief is never sure
Dime store mystery, last temptation

I was sitting drumming, thinking, thumping, pondering
The mysteries of life
Outside the city shrieking, screaming, whispering
The mysteries of life

There's a funeral tomorrow
At St. Patrick's the bells will ring for you
Ah, what must you have been thinking
When you realized the time had come for you?

I wish I hadn't thrown away my time
On so much human and so much less divine
The end of the last temptation
The end of a dime store mystery