A Drinking Song

(album: Promenade - 1994)

Back at the house
A bottle is found
And opened in honour of those who have drowned
While we who have not are stricken with guilt
And dutifully see that not one drop is spilt

We're drinking to life
We're drinking to death
We're drinking till none of our livers are left
We're wending our way down to the spirit store
We'll drink till we just can't drink anymore
Raise your glasses high
Drink the cellar dry

Well, bloody my nose
And blacken my eye
If it ain't some young Turk in search of a fight
And Chanticleer's chest is sagging with pride
For honour has yet to be satisfied
Well, heaven be thanked
We live in an age
When no man need bother
Except on the stage
With 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori'
And definitely not tonight

I can still remember
When I was just a kid
I was free to do what I wanted to
But I never, ever did
So now with years of discretion reached
May we not forget
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité
For there's life in the old world yet

There'll always be an England (oh yes there will)
An Ireland and a France (indubitably)
A Liechtenstein and Finland (absolutely right, completely undeniable)
And we have only one chance

Earnest young man with an unhealthy tan
Puts a drink in my hand and says
"I understand
You're in search of the place
To continue the chase
Of the heavenly taste?
I suggest in that case
You all come with me
To my place by the sea
Where the glasses shall be overflowing with free
Alcoholic delights
And free love if you like
For what point has this life
If you can't realize you're dreams?!"

Oh, raise your glasses high
And drink the town dry
We'll drink beyond the boundaries of sense
We'll drink till we start to see lovely pink elephants
Inside our heads, inside our beds
Inside the threads of our pyjama legs
So don't shoot till you see the reds of our eyes
And an army of elephants marching behind
From the day I was born till the night I will die
All my lovers will be pink and elephantine