World War One - Sandi Thom

What did I do in the great world war

I learned to peel potatoes and scrub the floor

I watched the British sunset

Go down behind the skyline forevermore

I learned to ride as soldiers to the line

For days and nights in cattle trucks of swine

I learned to shave myself in tea

With the fragments of a mirror on my knee, ohh

So much for what I did

Not for what I’ve done

I never played a hero

But I faced a gun

This is World War I

Your fallen son

I’m a hundred years young

I learned to dodge the flying lumps of led

To keep the earth between the sniper and my head

Where life is one hard labour and a soldier gets his rest

When they lay him in the daisies with a puncture in his chest

So much for what I did

Not for what I’ve done

I never played a hero

But I faced a gun

This is World War I

Your fallen son

I’m a hundred years young

Ooh, sweet mother don’t you cry

Ooh, this will be the day that I die

I gathered souvenirs for home that I hoped to send

I carried around for months just to dump them in the end

Where all is done in darkness, where all is still in day

Where living men are buried and the dead unburied lay

So much for what I did

Not for what I’ve done

I never played a hero

But I faced a gun

This is World war one

And its just begun

This is world war one

Your fallen son

This is world war one

I’m just a hundred years young