Comfortable Dark · Album · Track 5
3 Aug 2026 · 3:54 · Swing · 305 plays
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Lyrics
Click a line to jump near it in the song.
We drew a line down the middle of a river one afternoon,
two gentlemen, a ruler, and an extremely pleasant lunch,
we signed it with a flourish and we toasted with champagne,
and the river went on being a river the whole time.
Now the fish upon the left are ours, the fish upon the right are theirs,
and the birds are frankly criminals — they cross without a care! —
but the map says what the map says and the map has got a seal,
so tell the boys to load the guns and make the fiction real!
We're drawing lines in water! (lines in water!)
Drawing lines in water, boys, and dying for the ink! (for the ink!)
Drawing lines in water! (lines in water!)
Where the ocean's got opinions and it doesn't know a thing!
Oh, my grandfather bled for a hedge and a hill,
and his grandfather bled for the other side still,
same field, same mud, same rain, same sons —
we're drawing lines in water! And the band plays on!
Now I love my flag, I do, I love the colours and the song,
I got it the same way I got my eyes and got my name —
which is to say I didn't choose a single stitch of it,
I was handed it at birth and told to burn for it the same.
And had the stork gone half a mile east, well then I'd love the other one,
with the very same devotion and the very same fire,
which is either very beautiful, or the whole entire joke —
depending how much thinking you can take before you tire!
They took a photograph from orbit, you know.
Three hundred miles up.
No lines.
No colours. No sides.
Just weather... and light... and everybody's mother.
(a beat) We put it on a stamp.
And then we went right back to work.
And the river doesn't know it, and the sky has never heard,
and the dirt has never once repeated a single word —
same field, same mud, same rain, same sons...
we're drawing lines in water. And the band plays on.
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