The Decemberists - 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 tough, 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 battlefield
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 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 battle field
Our rifles blaze away, we blaze away
We blaze away, we blaze away