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Well a teacher of mine once told me |
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That life was just a list of disappoints and defeats |
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And you could only do your best, |
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And I said "That's a ****ing cop-out, you're just washed up and your tired, and when I get to your age I won't be such a coward" |
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But these day |
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I sit at home, known to shout at my |
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TV And Punk |
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Rock didn't live up to what |
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I hoped that it could be |
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And all the things that |
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I believed with all my heart when |
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I was young |
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Are just coasters for beers and clean surfaces for drugs |
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And I packed all my pamphlets with my bibles at the back of the shelf |
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Well it was bad enough the feeling, and the first time it hit |
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When you realised your parents had let the world all go to shit |
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And that the values and ideals for which many had fought and died |
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Had been killed off in the committees and left to die by the wayside |
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But it was worse when we turned to the kids on the left |
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And got let down again by some poor excuse for protest |
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Yeah by idiot ****ing hippies in 50 different factions |
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Who are locked inside some kind of 60's battle re-enactment |
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And I hung-up my banner in disgust and |
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I head for the door |
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Oh but once we were young, and we were crass enough to care |
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But I guess you live and learn, we won't make that mistake again, no |
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Oh but surely just for one day, we could fight and we could win |
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And if only for a little while, we could insist on the impossible |
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Well we've been a good few hours drinking |
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So I'm going to say what everyone's thinking |
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If we're stuck on this ship and it's sinking |
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Then we might as well have a parade |
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Cos if it's still going to hurt in the morning |
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And a better plan's set to get forming |
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Then where's the harm spending an evening |
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In manning the old barricades, so come on old friends to the streets |
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Let's be 1905 but not 1917, let's be heroes, |
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Let's be martyrs, let's be radical thinkers |
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Who never have to test drive the least of their dreams |
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Let's divide up the world into the damned and safe |
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And then ride to the valleys like the old life brigade |
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And straighten our backs and we won't be afraid |
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And they'll celebrate our deaths with a national parade |
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So come on let's be young, let's be crass enough to care |
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Let's refuse to live and learn, let's make all our mistakes again yes |
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And then darling, just for one day, we can fight and we can win |
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And if only for a little while, we could insist on the impossible |
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Leave the mourning the to the morning |
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Yeah pain can be killed |
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With aspirin tablets and vitamin pills |
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But memories of hope, and glorious defeat |
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Are a little bit harder to beat |
