Many know my story, many sing praises

But for the uninitiated, I must proclaim,

Proclaim my history, my evolution

Shedding surfer paint as I crowed

And you will see who is afraid,

Afraid of the big black bat.

Outsiders on the beach summoned him

A hero who no longer held his values

Helplessly I had watched friends suffer

As red and gold turned to black and white

Foes became friends, loyalty to doubt

Whose side was I really on?

Valuable lesson learned about certainty

The only thing that is certain

Is that nothing is certain

If it was all to change, then I must

Engulf me in shadow, hide me in rafters

Let me out at show time.

When a man’s heart is full of deceit,

It shrivels up and it dies

And dark shadows take hold

From ashes of greatness comes a curse

Wrongs in need of writing

Only then I descend.

Look as you might to the skies,

In need of a vindicator,

Someone to strike fear

Onto hearts black and white

For it was that which created me

Good’s fight against evil had begun.

And so, I fought, through games of war

Fought in struggles of greed and of sin

As many around me had sold out their souls

Until this place I loved was consumed by evil

The clear had shifted to fog and blight

Only then did my sight turn red.

They say if you can’t beat ‘em, then join ‘em,

This choice was made, I signed with crimson

Joining with the bad boys of wrestling

Just some competition in the war destination

And if you turned your back on the wolfpack

You’d find yourself bound in a body bag.

These efforts were not enough,

But I found myself in Destination X,

Where I sacrificed my essence in a genesis

Inside this six-sided ring I peered,

And I saw, saw the Abyss

And he looked back at me.

Battled in empty venues and in lock downs

Succumbed to mine own inner evils

As my demons took hold of this Joker

I vowed to leave this impact,

And return there nevermore.

For all my strengths, I couldn’t contend,

Contend with the beast with no heart

Its energy was too much, I was no match

For kings of kings and for architects

Where fate was left uncertain

Until rumblings made me draw the curtain.

Winter was coming, the snow fell

On a night a forbidden door was opened

Out I came, to stop the hateful ones

Savior to grandsons of a plumber,

Rescuer to a former rival,

And a young man reminiscent of I.

This will not be the end of the Stinger

As he craved revolution and the darkness

To walk with the boy on the wild side

In street fights, in channels left behind

Watching as history unfolds every month,

I, the remnant of what was in a new world.

Against armies of shadows, a dark warrior

A prevailer of good, with voice of silence

With stalwart by my side, skinny daredevil

As I once needed someone by my side

So shall I stay by his, he is not alone

My legacy shall live on.

This is Sting.