The whole song goes , over and over :)
The first guy I know who died I can t remember his name
the tenth grade started
he just never came again
all his friends sat around and cried
for a day or two
You can say what you want about immortal soul
when that guy died it left a hole
it was my first clue
that when they re gone they re gone
Maybe Jesus beat that rap
we re not sure
maybe you can live forever
if your heart is pure
or maybe you ll come back
some day a a king prawn
Maybe angels come
and take you away to heaven
or the other way
but from down here it appears
that when they re gone
they re gone
Me and Stevie Gibson used to walk home from school
he used to have this little turn around rule
if you turn around the one way gotta turn around the other way or it s bad luck
He went out rafting on the river
the river went around and the raft went around
and his luck got all wound up and he drowned
and he was gone
(chorus)
Two weeks after Dieter died you could call him on the phone
and he would tell you that he s not home
and it gave you an eerie feeling even though you knew it was just an answering machine
Cause somewhere deep inside you know
that they don t come back when they go
and he had gone
and when they re gone
they re gone
(chorus)
My mother died in intensive care
we were sitting around singing on folding chairs
when I got the feeling somebody wasn t there
Well I counted noses but it came out right
the doctors said she died that night
but I felt that hole and I knew that she had gone
(chorus)
I looked up death in the dictionary one day
just to see what the dictionary had to say
it s the complete and irreversible cessation of life functions
Which is not very poetic but it s precise and clean
and if you analyze it what that means is
when they re gone
they re gone
(chorus)