The Soldiering Life - The Decemberists

Ambling madly all over the town

The call to arms you liken to a whisper,

I liken to a radio.

You were a brickbat, a bowery tuff, so rough

They culled you from a cartoon

Pulled out of your pantaloons.

But you,

My brother in arms,

I’d rather I’d lose my limbs

Than let you come to harm.

But you,

My bombazine doll,

The bullets may singe your skin

And the mortars may fall.

But I,

I never felt so much life

Than tonight

Huddled in the trenches,

Gazing on the battle field,

Our rifles blaze away;

We blaze away.

Corporal Bradley of regiment five

In proud array standing by the bathing

Soldiers and the stevedores.

We laid on the mattress and tumbled to sleep

Our eyes aligned, swaddled in our civies

Cradled in our dungarees.

But you,

My brother in arms,

I’d rather I’d lose my limbs

Than let you come to harm.

But you,

My bombazine doll,

The bullets may singe your skin

And the mortars may fall.

But I,

I never felt so much life

Than tonight

Huddled in the trenches,

Gazing on the battle field

Our rifles blaze away;

We blaze away.

We blaze away.

We blaze away.