Love Ire & Song

Well a teacher of mine once told me

Life was just a list of disappointments and defeats

And you could only do your best

And I said

Well that's a fucking cop-out

You're just washed up and you're tired

And when I get to your age, well, I won't be such a coward

But these days I sit at home

Known to shout at my TV

And punk rock didn't live up to what I'd 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

And I packed all my pamphlets with my bibles

At the back of the shelf

Well it was bad enough, the feeling

And the first time it hit

When you realized 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 of 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

Yeah, by idiot fucking hippies and fifty different factions

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

And 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 gonna say what everyone's thinking

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

Then we might as well have a parade

'Cause if it's still gonna hurt in the morning

And a better plan's yet 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 the 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

Yeah, we can fight and we can win

And if only for a little while

We could insist on the impossible

Leave the mourning to the morning

Yeah, pain can be killed

With aspirin tablets and vitamin pills

But memories of hope and of glorious defeat

Are a little bit harder to beat