Grabrede [English translation]

When our skulls eventually blankly stare

One can't see among us

Who was a winner, and who a loser

Who was a poor and who a rich man

What we are, then, is uncertain

Probably only darkness remains.

Question the Devil, ask your God...

You can be a sexton

With choral singing and celibacy

Travel around the world as the Pope

With a secretary and your own state

There being something beyond the sky

That is deception, fraud

And they'll also write down for you in golden letters on granite:

You take nothing with you!

You can be a stockbroker

With an account in a Swiss bank

You can be a homeowner

Almost eaten by greed

If you turn a penny three times

And go begging on the street

You can be a drunkard, with a bottle of liquor in his coat:

You take nothing with you!

Jugglers, teachers, masons, writers

White slave handlers, cutthroats

State prosecutors, grave diggers

Libertines*, whores, employers

Legionnaires and traitors

Honest citizens, assassins

Christians and heretics, Rastafarians, Hindu and Shiites:

You take nothing with you!