You Tattooed Me

I was stranded up in Antwerp in the Summer of '54

There were teeming streets full of refugees

And rumours of a new world war

I was waiting at the station when a newcomer arrived

You took your place and fixed me with those crazy hazel eyes

The boarding house was crowded where I followed you in fright

You slammed the door behind us and smashed the electric light

You said 'why try to fight it?', I could feel my racing heart

Then you nuzzled up like an animal

And you kissed me in the dark

We wrecked the bed and went, and never paid a cent

I drank the fare and never made the train

Till I was 25 I was only half alive

And I hardly knew what hit me when you came

And tattooed me, tattooed me

No, I hardly knew what hit me when you came

We shacked up in a basement after breaking down the door

With bedbugs in the blankets, broken bottles on the floor

We were penniless and hungry, having arguments and fights

I was coughing blood all winter but I'd never been more alive

And then one fatal day you volunteered your life away

While I was way too weak to be alarmed

And when I was drunk asleep as you left to join the fleet

You tattooed your name with a needle in my arm

You tattooed me, tattooed me

Tattooed me with a needle in my arm

With the peace talks in Geneva we slowly crawled away

From the brink of the unthinkable and began to breathe each day

There were rumours you'd deserted, then no more letters came

My life was wrecked but I did my best to pick up the bits again

And when I was on the mend I drifted back to Zaventem

And worked unloading cargo from a plane

I began to pay my way on a thousand francs a day

And as time went by I realized we'd never meet again

You tattooed me, tattooed me

And I knew that we would never meet again