The Long, The Short And The Tall

Robi: I wrote this one back in the days of Lower Wacker Drive, my Boston band, so it's one of the first songs I ever wrote. Date? eh...probably 1986. The Reagan years, when everyone wanted to look good in fatigues. We're all going on a summer holiday: in Grenada! If you're a Brit: oh, those summers in paradise, Las Malvinas!

In my little tune (a waltz; gentlemen, grab your ladies), the too easily tarnished shine of soldierdom provides the grist for this gritty tale of a young man who enlists, finds the perfect girl over a cheap drink, then gets shipped off to foreign climes and an untimely end, leaving her bereft at home. A sadly familiar story in these days of perpetual conflict.

The title came from a play I read in high school, a cliche-ridden yet intensely moving piece about a motley collection of British soldiers under siege in the steaming Burmese jungle. It didn't end well for them, either.

This recording is from our Saxon Pub gig, 7/12/2009.

Can't find the music? Ah! Sign up for our mailing list and you'll receive links to these hidden gems! Click here and make sure you don't miss a trick.

The Long, The Short And The Tall

Down on your luck or down and out
It gets so easy to say:
"I'll take the benefit of the doubt,"
And sign myself away

The uniform looks good on me
I walk to watch hips sway
And a dollar a drink and some mighty cheap talk
Is enough to make her stay

I don't want to go home
I just want to stay here all night
The animals moan or hide in the shadows
And everyone's afraid of the moonlight

Making a life out of making men dead
It impressed her so much she'd make me she said
But we lie to ourselves when we lie on the bed
Is that war game you play all in your head?

I don't want to go home
I just want to stay here all night
We're up with the sun to fly to the shadows
Where everyone's afraid of the moonlight

My face pressed to the glass of a greasy bus window
It runs on blood and gas and jokes about who'll go (first)

First off the bus, first in the ditch
We're pigs in the mud, a rifle's our bitch
And the sergeant's so cool but the heat makes me itch
And everything's too smooth, when it just takes a touch

I don't want to go home
I just want to stay here all night
I can't remember her face anymore
I can't find the letters she writes

A woman pressed to the glass watches the planes fly away
It's here and then it's past and I canít bear to see her wave

It's a "Come on, my boys!" to the top of the hill
We're rabbits with rifles we're pigs to the swill
And the first sign of life is the first sign to kill
And if you get dirty they'll send you the bill

I don't want to go home
I just want to stay here all night
The animals moan or hide in the shadows
And everyone's afraid of the moonlight

I don't want to go home
I just want to stay here all night
The animals moan or hide in the shadows
And everyone's afraid of the moonlight