Richard Thompson Gethsemane
Among the headstones you played as boys
Crypts and tombs like a roomful of toys
Just up the river from the smoke and the noise
Gethsemane
And there’s war-whoops and secret signs in the trees
Estuary smells coming up on the breeze
O perfect endless days like these
O Gethsemane
Sailboat on the Cadie, pushbike on the quay
In your eyes there’s fire, in your hand destiny
‘O be something, be something fine!’
Just down the river, into the noise and the smoke
Being daring with the staring, uncaring folk
Who laugh with you, laugh at you, you’ll never get the
joke
Gethsemane
And they broke your spirit there in the marines
Flushed your head down in the latrines
Frozen in your sacrement, derailed in your teens
Never saw the enemy
And those bosses betrayed, soon let you go
The fire in your eyes, how could they know
‘O be something, be something fine!’
Now you’ve got your own boys, hell bent for leather
Dead before they’re 18, or bitter old men forever
They never saw the halo moon rise over the river
Of Gethsemane
Now there’s a pain in your head puts lead in your shoes
Better get it seen to, it’s going to be bad news
How did the perfect world get so confused
O Gethsemane
Who sucked out the freedom, days without end
Under the weight of it all you must bend
‘O be something, be something fine!’
