Old Enough To Kill A Man

Genres

Alt. Rock

Description

Lyrics

Old Enough To Kill A Man V1 My gravesite at Ypres is simple and neat Someone’s placed poppies, they lie at my feet There’s a faint scent of lilacs on wind from the west And I’m here with my friends who are also at rest V2 I no longer remember the fear and the pain The bitter cold wind and the mud and the rain The stretchers of canvas all stiffened with blood Or the screams of the men who were drowning in mud Chorus My mam wept at the window When they marched me off to France I was old enough to kill a man But still too young to dance V3 They sent me to Flanders where thousands had died The Generals made speeches, but they were all lies And if God was watching, He’d covered up His face And abandoned us there in that grim, wretched place V4 I fought like a man but I was only fifteen With a tin full of rations and a heart full of dreams Like any young lad with a future to build I never believed that I could be killed Chorus My mam wept at the window When they marched me off to France I was old enough to kill a man But still too young to dance V5 It wasn’t the worst when the bullets spun past But the swiftness of death when the trench filled with gas And the shriek of the shells as they shattered the sky Or of men who were broken and hung on barbed wire V6 The South Downs of Sussex are far, far away The mist still drifts down from the scarp to the bay It’s a much different landscape from what we saw here With the scorched, mangled trees and the earth that was bare Bridge Sometimes I wish I could sit up and breathe Tell you how you’ve all been deceived Because if you kill one man, you murder them all, And there'll be no end to heartache and war V7 I see it’s still greed and it’s hatred and fear And I ask myself why did I need to die here I was too young for love but so hopeful of joy I fought like a man but I was only a boy V8 I’d throw off this tombstone that’s pinning me down And dance like a fool wearing Life as my crown But my gravestone at Ypres sits heavy and deep And someone’s placed poppies, blood red, at my feet Chorus My mam wept at the window When they marched me off to France I was old enough to kill a man But still too young to dance * At the end of the song is a spoken piece from Laurence Binyon's 1914 poem "For the Fallen". They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them © 2009 Donna Devine