The Forger

Up on the 3rd floor
I used to rent a room
It got no fresh air
You could get dizzy from the fumes
I’d spend the nights in there
Maybe I’d sleep a few winks
I’d clear a place somewhere
Between the papers and the inks

I had a printing press
It was my Tommy gun
I dreamed I ambushed them
Whenever it would run
I couldn’t shoot a man
This was what I could do
And with my documents
The guards would’ve waved them through

CHORUS
I didn’t know them
I never met them
How could I turn away
And just forget them?
I still can picture
Some of their faces
They were desperate to leave
For safer places

I was an artisan
A counterfeiter
I had a steady hand
That didn’t get the jitters
One day the partisans
Told me my skills were needed
‘Cause there was madness on the rise
That had to be defeated

I doctored names
Altered their ages
I put a different place of birth
Upon the pages
I made them businessmen
I made them teachers
I made them someone else
With all the same features

CHORUS
I didn’t know them
I never met them
How could I turn away
And just forget them?
I still can picture
Some of their faces
They were desperate to leave
For safer places

I’d meet my handler
In busy cafes
We would trade envelopes
Then go our separate ways
No time for small talk
Too many lives at stake
Passports to reproduce
All night I’d be awake

I worked in secrecy
Nobody knew of this
Not even my daughter, or my wife
There just was too much risk
They said I worked too much
I couldn’t tell them why
But now I have to tell someone
Before I die

CHORUS
I didn’t know them
I never met them
How could I turn away
And just forget them?
I still can picture
Some of their faces
They were desperate to leave
For safer places