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Recorded 1983 by Tom Robinson and Crew: Steve Laurie (drums) Sean Mayes (keys & backing vocals) Simon Skinner (bass) Ebo Ross (percussion & backing vocals), Mark Ramsden (sax), Danny Kustow (guitar). Additional guitar parts by Nigel Bennett.

lyrics

War Baby

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
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
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

Co 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 - this means
War baby - I'm scared, so scared
Whatever it is you keep putting me through

credits

from I Wanna Be Your Cabin Boy, released October 5, 2009
Lyrics by Tom Robinson, Music by Tom Robinson and Mark Ramsden. Published by Notting Hill Music. Engineered and co-produced with TR by Dennis Weinreich.

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Tom Robinson London, UK

Tom Robinson (b.1950) is a UK songwriter & broadcaster first known in the 70s as an anti-racist and LGBT campaigner. He released 19 albums between 1975-2001 with various bands and has co-written songs with Elton John, Peter Gabriel, Dan Hartman and Manu Katché. He's an award-winning presenter at BBC Radio 6 Music, and released Only The Now (his first album in 19 years) in October 2015. ... more

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