The Collaborator

Well here's a simple question
Were it 1941
An army came, changed all the names
And finished all your fun
Who'd collaborate?
Is it an easy thing to do
And if fate was just a choice
Who'd be on the side to lose?

Swearing they did not know
I swear I did not know
Hindsight can be cruel sometimes
I swear I did not know

I was waiting in a restaurant
Where officers would eat
And my wife ran the hotel upstairs
And she changed their dirty sheets

They'd treat us good, at least as well
As you'd expect to be
We just did what we were told to do
And then go home and sleep

I swear we did not know
I swear we did not know
We did not have a crystal ball
And had to bear a load

Then came the deliverance
The officers were gone
The tables were left empty
The hotel foreclosed on
We found no love in our city
We had nothing and no one
We lived on food stamps
Until I found work
Selling soap in Avignon

I swear we did not know
I swear we did not know
You lay with dogs, you catch their fleas
Much later down the road

So be careful who you're sleeping with
'Cause times have changed a bit
The borders are more porous now
They breach the walls with tricks
You could be one of them yourself
To someone, somewhere else
So don't mark your hands with blindness
Before all the cards are dealt

'Cause a change will always come