The Soldiering Life

by The Decemberists

From the album: Her Majesty The Decemberists

Track 7 of 11 on Her Majesty The Decemberists (2003).

Duration: 03:48

Her Majesty The Decemberists cover art

Lyrics for The Soldiering Life

Ambling madly all over the town The call to arms you likened to a whisper I likened to a radio You were a brickbat, a Bowery tough, 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 battlefield Our rifles blaze away We blaze away, oh 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 civvies 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 battlefield Our rifles blaze away We blaze away, oh We blaze away, oh We blaze away, oh

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More from Her Majesty The Decemberists

  1. Shanty for the Arethusa
  2. Billy Liar
  3. Los Angeles, I'm Yours
  4. The Gymnast, High Above the Ground
  5. The Bachelor and the Bride
  6. Song for Myla Goldberg
  7. The Soldiering Life
  8. Red Right Ankle
  9. The Chimbley Sweep
  10. I Was Meant For the Stage
  11. As I Rise