War Baby

(album: Ghosts - 2014)

Only the very young
And the very beautiful
Can be so aloof
Hanging out with the boys
All swagger and poise
I don't even care
What other people are there
I just stare and stare and stare

I see your shadow in the swimming pool
I see your face in the shaving mirror
Time and time and time again
I follow your footsteps
So quietly up the backstairs
And I hope and I pray
You're never going to find me there

Smooth skin and tenderness
Long ago on a dark night
Wish I could see you once again
Just to remember it was true
I want to be still beside you
Quiet and still beside you
Listening to your breathing
And feeling your warmth again

War baby you were a
War baby this means
War baby I'm scared, so scared
Of whatever it is
You keep putting me through

I don't think I could stand
Another ten years of this fighting
All this stabbing and wounding
Only getting my own back
I don't want to batter you
To your feet and knees and elbows
When I'm kneeling like a candle
At the foot of my own bed

Corresponding disasters
Every night on the TV
Sickening reality keeps
Gripping me in its guts
All my friends talk and joke
And laugh about Armageddon
But like a nightmare it's still
Waiting there at
The end of every day

War baby you were a
War baby this means
War baby I'm scared, so scared
Of whatever it is you keep putting me through

I don't think I could stand another
Ten years of this fighting
All this stabbing and wounding
Only getting my own back
But later that same evening
We were out in the car talking
When I suddenly wondered who the hell
It was we were trying to fool

Cause you were the
First one that I ever wanted
And it's you I come home to
At the end of every day
Like a mother-sucking baby
Demanding and so helpless
A little old balding man
All wrinkles and bulging eyes

War baby you were a
War baby well this means
War baby I'm scared, so scared
Of whatever it is you keep putting me through