DESCRIPTION:
Tom Robinson - War Baby (12" Version)
From album War Baby: Hope & Glory (1996 reissue)

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 ain't 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 that 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
War baby - this means
War baby - I'm scared, so scared
Whatever it is you keep putting me through

Sounds like somebody's out there in the night
Might just be the voice of someone I once knew
Hear me father and mother if I should cry out loud
When I'm kneeling like a candle at the foot of my own bed

Corresponding disasters every night on the TV
Sickening reality keep gripping me in its guts
All my friends all talk and joke and laugh about Armageddon
But like a nightmare it's still waiting there
At the end of each and 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
You were a war baby
War baby -
Don't wanna live in another world war, baby
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
Cos if it's really true then we're all in this together
Something's bound to give soon
And it sure as hell isn't gonna be me

Co you were the first one I ever wanted
And it's you I come home to at the end of every day
Like a mother-sucking baby, so demanding and helpless
Like 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...

So here we all are in the Kino der Jugend
On a cold dark Friday night
Forgotten by the world outside
Out in the houses people finish their dinner and watch TV
Get ready for bed and dream about the weekend
You and me we're so, so alone
In the middle of a crowded room...

Written by TR with sax parts by Mark Ramsden. Produced by TR, co-produced & engineered by Dennis Weinreich. Additional engineering by Alastair Houston. Recorded at Redan Recorders, London. Steve Laurie (dr, perc), Ebo Ross, Sean Mayes (b.vox), Pat Davey (bs), Paul Harvey (gtr), Sean Mayes (kyb), Mark Ramsden (sax), Deezal Martin (gtr fx), TR (ac gtr, synth fx)