The Legionnaire’s Lament Songtext
von The Decemberists

I′m a Legionnaire
Camel in disrepair
Hoping for a frigid air
To come passing by

I am on reprieve
Lacking my joie de vive
Missing my gay Paree
In this desert dry

And I wrote my girl
Told her I would not return
Terribly taken a turn
For the worse, now I fear

It's been a year or more
Since they shipped me to this foreign shore
Fighting in a foreign war
So far away from my home


If only summer rain would fall
On the houses and the boulevards
And the side walk bagatelles
It′s like a dream

With the roar of cars
And the lulling of the cafe bars
The sweetly sleeping sweeping of the Seine
Lord, I don't know if I'll ever be back again

Medicating in the sun
Pinched doses of laudanum
Longing for the old fecundity
Of my homeland

Curses to this mirage
A bottle of ancient Chiraz
A smattering of distant applause
Is ringing in my poor ears

On the old left bank
My baby in a charabanc
Riding up the width and length
Of the Champs Elysees


If only summer rain would fall
On the houses and the boulevard
And the side walk bagatelles
It′s like a dream

With the roar of cars
And the lulling of the cafe bars
The sweetly sleeping sweeping of the Seine
Lord, I don′t know if I'll ever be back again

If only summer rain would fall
On the houses and the boulevard
And the side walk bagatelles
It′s like a dream

With the roar of cars
And the lulling of the cafe bars
The sweetly sleeping sweeping of the Seine
Lord, I don't know if I′ll ever be back again

Be back again
Be back again
I'll be back again