It's a quiet, peaceful night, the moon is shining bright
Giving not a hint of what's in store
A few hours before morning without a single warning
Something strange begins to move the floor

A quake, a quake
The house begins to shake
You're bouncing 'cross the floor
And watching all your dishes break

You're sleeping, there's a quake
You're instantly awake
You're leaping out of bed
And shouting, "Oh, for heaven's sake"

I ran outside with neighbors
Their faces full of shocks
That's because I'm standing there
In nothing but my socks

Oops, a quake, a quake
This must be a mistake
Just feel the ground go up and down
Won't someone hit the brake?

A quake, a quake
Oh, what a mess they make
The bricks, the walls, the chimney falls
Destruction in its wake

I did not have insurance
I called them from the scene
And suddenly I'm listening
To an answering machine

Say, "Too late, too late
You shouldn't ought to wait
'Cause now you're stuck, we wish you luck
Here comes a six point eight"

Whose fault, whose fault?
Blame it on the fault
'Cause Mister Richter can't predict her
Kicking our asphalt

Seismologists all say
Tectonic plates are in between
An encroaching crustal mantle
Yeah, so what the heck's that mean?

It means a quake, a quake
Oh really, yeah, no fake
We kind of had that feeling
When the ground began to shake

And so we wait
Resign ourselves to fate
Because our lawn
Is sitting on a continental plate

We shivered through a blizzard
Went swimming in a flood
Then we blew off a hurricane
And now we hear a thud

Of a quake, a quake
How much more can we take?
We thought that we had seen it all
But this one takes the cake

The dirt, the rocks
Those crazy aftershocks
It's just the planet moving granite
Several city blocks

Now the town is falling down
While the ground moves around
We won't let it get us down
Get beneath the door frame

A quake, a quake
It's time to pull up stake
The worst is over, we don't buy it
We're fed up, we can't deny it
We just want some peace and quiet
So we're moving to Beirut