The Decemberists - The Soldiering Life LYRICS

Ambling madly all over the town

The call to arms you likened to a whisper

I likened to a radio

You were a brick bat, a bowery tuff, so rough

They called 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 battle field

Our rifles blaze away

We blaze away



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 civies

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 battle field

Our rifles blaze away

We blaze away

We blaze away

We blaze away







If you fin