The Decemberists
The Decemberists
The Decemberists
The Decemberists
The Decemberists
The Decemberists
The Decemberists
The Decemberists
The Decemberists
The Decemberists
This song is sung from the point of view of a homesick soldier in the French Foreign Legion, most likely during the conquest of Algeria from 1830-1847.
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 Paris
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
La la la la dam
La la la low
Medicating in the sun
Pinched doses of laudanum
Longing for the old fecundity of my homeland
Curses to this mirage!
A bottle of ancient Shiraz
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 its 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
The Legionnaire’s Lament was written by Colin Meloy.
The Legionnaire’s Lament was produced by The Decemberists.
The Decemberists released The Legionnaire’s Lament on Tue May 21 2002.