1916 lyrics

16 years old when I went to the war,

To fight for a land fit for heroes.

God on my side, and a gun in my hand,

Chasing my days down to zero.

And I marched and I fought and I bled

And I died and I never did get any older.

But I knew at the time, that a year in the line,

Was a long enough life for a soldier

We all volunteered,

And we wrote down our names,

And we added two years to our ages.

Eager for life and ahead of the game,

Ready for history's pages.

And we brawled and we fought

And we whored 'til we stood,

Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder.

A thirst for the Hun,

We were food for the gun, and that's

What you are when you're soldiers

I heard my friend cry,

And he sank to his knees, coughing blood

As he screamed for his mother.

And I fell by his side,

And that's how we died,

Clinging like kids to each other.

And I lay in the mud,

And the guts and the blood,

And I wept as his body grew colder.

And I called for my mother

And she never came.

Though it wasn't my fault

And I wasn't to blame.

The day not half over

And ten thousand slain, and now

There's nobody remembers our names

And that's how it is for a soldier.