Island Of No Return

(album: Brewing Up With Billy Bragg - 1984)

Digging all day and digging all night
To keep my foxhole out of sight
Digging into dinner on a plate on my knees
The smell of damp webbing in the morning breeze
Fear in my stomach, fear in the sky
I eat my dinner with a weary eye
After all this it won't be the same
Messing around on Salisbury Plain

Pick up your feet, fall in, move out
We're going to a party way down South
Me and the Corporal out on a spree
Damned from here to eternity

I hate this flat land, there's no cover
For sons and fathers and brothers and lovers
I can take the killing, I can take the slaughter
But I don't talk to Sun reporters
I never thought that I would be
Fighting fascists in the Southern Sea
I saw one today and in his hand
Was a weapon that was made in Birmingham

Pick up your feet, fall in, move out
We're going to a party way down South
Me and the Corporal out on a spree
Damned from here to eternity

I wish Kipling and the Captain were here
To record our pursuits for posterity
Me and the Corporal out on a spree
Damned from here to eternity