Love Ire & Song

Well a teacher of mine once told me That 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've packed all my pamphlets with my bibles At the back of the shelf Well it was bad enough, the feeling 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 off in the committees And left to die by the way-side 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 In fifty different factions Who are locked inside some kind of 60s battle 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, yeah, 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 So 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