like a bird on the wire
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free
like a worm on the hook
like a knight from some old-fashiond book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee

and if I have been unkind
I hope that you will just let it go by
and if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you

like a babe stillborn
like a beast with his horn

Now I greet you from the other side
Of sorrow and despair
With a love so vast and so shattered
It will reach you everywhere

And I sing this for the captain
Whose ship has not been built
For the mother in confusion
Her cradle still unfilled

For the heart with no companion
For the soul without a king
For the prima ballerina
Who cannot dance to anything

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring

La la la la la la...

Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc
As she came riding through the dark;
No moon to keep her armour bright,
No man to get her through this very smoky night.

She said, "I'm tired of the war,
I want the kind of work I had before,
A wedding dress or something white,
To wear upon my swollen appetite."

La la la la la la...

Well I'm glad to hear you talk this way,

I lit a thin green candle
to make you jealous of me
but the room just filled with mosquitos
they heard that my body was free
then I took the dust from a long sleepless night
and I put it in your little shoe
then I confess that I tortured the dress
that you wore for the world to look through.

I showed my heart to the doctor
He said I'd just have to quit

Oh the sisters of mercy
they are not departed or gone,
they were waiting for me
when I thought that I just can't go on
And they brought me their comfort
and later they brought me this song
Oh I hope you run into them
you who've been travelling so long

You who must leave everything
that you cannot control
it begins with your family
but soon it comes round to your soul

There is a war between the rich and poor,
A war between the man and the woman.
There is a war between the ones who say there is a war
And the ones who say there isn't.

Why don't you come on back to the war
Why don't you come on back to the war

Ah yes I live here with a woman and a child,
The situation makes me kind of nervous.

And who by fire, who by water,
who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
who in your merry merry month of may,
who by very slow decay,
and who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,
who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,
and who by avalanche, who by powder,
who for his greed, who for his hunger,