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Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Five hundred years like Gelignite
Have blown us all to hell
What savior rests while on his cross we die
While forgotten freedom burns
Has the Shepard led his lambs astray
To the bigot and the gun
Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
I watch and stare as Rosin's eyes
Turn a darker shade of red
And the bullet with this sniper lie
In their bloody gutless cell
Must we starve on crumbs from long ago
Through bars these men made steel
Is it a great or little thing we fought
Knelt the conscience blessed to kill
Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
Ah, but maybe it's the way you were taught
Or maybe it's the way we fought
But a smile never grins without tears to begin
For each kiss is a cry we all lost
Though there is nothing left to gain
But for the banshee that stole the grave
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
I sit in and dwell on faces past
Like memories seem to fade
No color left but black and white
And soon will all turn grey
But may these shadows rise to walk again
With lessons truly learnt
When the blossom flowers in each our hearts
Shall beat a new found flame
Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
To glisten once again
Five hundred years like Gelignite
Have blown us all to hell
What savior rests while on his cross we die
While forgotten freedom burns
Has the Shepard led his lambs astray
To the bigot and the gun
Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
I watch and stare as Rosin's eyes
Turn a darker shade of red
And the bullet with this sniper lie
In their bloody gutless cell
Must we starve on crumbs from long ago
Through bars these men made steel
Is it a great or little thing we fought
Knelt the conscience blessed to kill
Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
Ah, but maybe it's the way you were taught
Or maybe it's the way we fought
But a smile never grins without tears to begin
For each kiss is a cry we all lost
Though there is nothing left to gain
But for the banshee that stole the grave
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
I sit in and dwell on faces past
Like memories seem to fade
No color left but black and white
And soon will all turn grey
But may these shadows rise to walk again
With lessons truly learnt
When the blossom flowers in each our hearts
Shall beat a new found flame
Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
Lyrics submitted by black_cow_of_death
Track duration: 03:51
"Drunken Lullabies" as written by Robert Schmidt George Schwindt
Lyrics © BOB-A-LEW SONGS
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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As for the song Drunken Lullabies, must people be killed for a realization of how wrong any war is? It seems like it takes a huge tragedy to progress in the ideology of war and attempting different methods of dealing with conflict. Five centuries of civil war in Ireland? All over Religion, because people want to be free which is their right. Let people choose for themselves, that's life. People fighting in the name of Religion are hypocrites.
"Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again"
Do people have to die before we understand what's going on and come together again? Think Romeo and Juliet: the Montagues and Capulets fought with hateful conviction....until R&J died and they realized what their hatred was doing, and they quite literally cried together.
"Five hundred years like Gelignite
Have blown us all to hell"
Fairly self-explanatory.
"Ah, but maybe it's the way you were taught
Or maybe it's the way we fought"
Maybe it's because our fathers taught us to hate each other, or maybe it's just because we've fought so long we don't know how to stop.
"I sit in and dwell on faces past
Like memories seem to fade"
The faces of those that died, like all memories, fade away and are made blurred and uncertain by time.
"No color left but black and white
And soon will all turn gray"
There's nothing to it anymore except "us against them", and eventually it will end the same for all of us: the grey ashen color of the dead.
"But may these shadows rise to walk again
With lessons truly learnt"
But maybe these shadows of the past will walk the earth again (either the people, or perhaps their history, which teaches the lesson to the next generation), and finally understand what's going on.
Anyway, that's just what I see in it, and it's really a powerful song for me. No matter how you read it though, this song is AMAZING.
BTW, those last six lines I put up there ^ (I sit....lessons truly learnt) my fave!! (If you read them that way) those are some of the greatest anti-war lyrics ever, IMO.