Love Ire & Song

Well a teacher of mine once told me

That life was just a list of disappoints and defeats

And you could only do your best.

And I said "That's a fucking cop-out, you're just washed up and your tired,

and when I get to your age I won't be such a coward."

But these day I sit at home, I'm known to shout at my TV,

And Punk Rock didn't live up to what I hoped that it could be,

And all the things that I believed with all my heart when I was young

Are just coasters for beers and clean surfaces for drugs.

So I packed all my pamphlets with my bibles at the back of the shelf.

Well it was bad enough the feeling, on the first time it hit,

When you realised your parents had let the world all go to shit,

And that the values and ideals for which many had fought and died

Had been killed off in the committees and left to die by the wayside.

But it was worse when we turned to the kids on the left,

And got let down again by some poor excuse for protest -

By idiot fucking hippies in 50 different factions

Who are locked inside some kind of 60's battle re-enactment.

So I hung-up my banner in disgust and I head for the door.

Oh but once we were young, and we were crass enough to care.

But I guess you live and learn, we won't make that mistake again, no.

Oh but surely just for one day, we could fight and we could win,

And if only for a little while, we could insist on the impossible.

Well we've been a good few hours drinking,

So I'm going to say what everyone's thinking:

If we're stuck on this ship and it's sinking,

Then we might as well have a parade.

Because if it's still going to hurt in the morning,

And a better plan's set to get forming,

Then where's the harm spending an evening

In manning the old barricades?

So come on old friends to the streets

Let's be 1905 but not 1917,

Let's be heroes, let's be martyrs, let's be radical thinkers

Who never have to test drive the least of their dreams.

Let's divide up the world into the damned and saved,

And then ride to the valley like the old Light Brigade,

And straighten our backs, and we won't be afraid,

And they'll celebrate our deaths with a national parade.

So come on let's be young, let's be crass enough to care.

Let's refuse to live and learn, let's make all our mistakes again, yes.

And then darling, just for one day, we can fight and we can win,

And if only for a little while, we could insist on the impossible.

Leave the mourning the to the morning:

Pain can be killed

With aspirin tablets and vitamin pills.

But memories of hope, and glorious defeat,

Are a little bit harder to beat.