Sorry for Our Innocence

You were such a small girl, when I used to stay
In the dirt yards outside the factory
I remember how we managed to sway
In the hot shade of the concrete quay
Where a rusted freighter pulled at its stays
In the dirty backwater we hoped would take us away

[Chorus]
I'm sorry for our innocence
But when I was a younger man
I tried to be a kinder man
A gentle man
I tried to be a man of consequence
A man of significance
But when I left home, I left forever
And nothing can change what chance has severed

Can you still hear the bands that played in the square
The steel drums, the starving dogs
And the old women we'd see there?
Those songs of future tense, that black beat of despair
We were so unaware
Of the empty words tossed in disrepair
In the blasted air

[Chorus]
I'm sorry for our innocence
But when I was a younger man
I tried to be a kinder man
A gentle man
I tried to be a man of consequence
A man of significance
But when I left home, I left forever
And nothing can change what chance has severed

I remember late winter when the wind off the water
Lifted your hair like a curtain for stars
And I remember later summer, when the shouts in the night
Lit up the hills, the harbor and bars
With the glow of money not earned, and lessons not learned
The glow of the badly burned
By the politics of no return