High above dear Maple Street There looms a cold iron curtain of fear That dares to drop and let all the monsters Unleash their dreaded promise of chaos As in Europe despots gift a new World War Trembling parlors hug the radio
Hallows Eve: the radio Begins to sing throughout dear Maple Street The Seventh Trumpet declares all out war And that heavy iron curtain of fear Eclipses the sun and invites chaos In vacant hearts of men into monsters
Halloween Night: the monsters Now dance to the tune of the radio Raiding the stores, jumping bridges, chaos Entombing the stretch of this blood strewn street Parlors gorging on endless waves of fear Riding hysteria, imminent war
O great catalyst of war Twisting the minds of men into monsters Diving your hands in that great pit of fear Now throbbing with screams from the radio No fences nor faces can save Maple Street Now plunged in the throes of sweet sultry Chaos
And we call it Chaos This boiling of minds all stewing with war Once masked with humanity on this street Now reveals good neighbors make great monsters Skies of martians (n)or men, the radio Hissing, twists the knobs and tunes in to fear
And when that curtain of fear Draws, and shadeless light casts on the chaos And the broadcast fades on the radio And mere fiction rescinds the throne of war What will we make of all of these monsters Scattered about in a daze through the street
Where there are minds of fear and war, Chaos reigns and calls to the sleeping monsters; Tune in to Wellesβs radio on Sterlingβs street.
All Hallow's Eve, 80 years ago today, Orson Welles gave his "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast to an America terrified of war, enveloped in fear. I tied it into one of my favorite episodes of the Twilight Zone by the same name, where a neighborhood becomes engrossed in fear, resorting to an animal-like defense that eventually tears apart their humanity.