Island of No Return

by Billy Bragg

From the album: Back to Basics

Track 13 of 21 on Back to Basics (1987).

Duration: 3:37

Back to Basics cover art

Lyrics for Island of No Return

Digging all day and digging all night To keep my foxhole out of sight Digging into dinner on a plate on my knees The smell of damp webbing in the morning breeze Fear in my stomach, fear in the sky I eat my dinner with a weary eye After all this it won't be the same Messing around on Salisbury Plain Pick up your feet, fall in, move out We're going to a party way down South Me and the Corporal out on a spree Damned from here to eternity I hate this flat land, there's no cover For sons and fathers and brothers and lovers I can take the killing, I can take the slaughter But I don't talk to Sun reporters I never thought that I would be Fighting fascists in the Southern Sea I saw one today and in his hand Was a weapon that was made in Birmingham Pick up your feet, fall in, move out We're going to a party way down South Me and the Corporal out on a spree Damned from here to eternity I wish Kipling and the Captain were here To record our pursuits for posterity Me and the Corporal out on a spree Damned from here to eternity

Listen On

More from Back to Basics

  1. The Milkman of Human Kindness
  2. To Have and to Have Not
  3. Richard
  4. Lovers Town Revisited
  5. A New England
  6. The Man in the Iron Mask
  7. The Busy Girl Buys Beauty
  8. It Says Here
  9. Love Gets Dangerous
  10. From a Vauxhall Velox
  11. The Myth of Trust
  12. The Saturday Boy
  13. Island of No Return
  14. This Guitar Says Sorry
  15. Like Soldiers Do
  16. St. Swithin's Day
  17. Strange Things Happen
  18. A Lover Sings
  19. Between the Wars
  20. The World Turned Upside Down
  21. Which Side Are You On