Momus - Three Wars lyrics

The first war, the war of 14 to 18
Begins with an uprising of adrenalin
The first war begins with
The testicles descending
And desire assassinating the child
That you once were
The war begins at school when you
Rebel against the maths teacher
Who touched you up behind his desk
And ends when you've failed
Your final maths exam
And had your first success with sex
The war brings new discoveries
How to make dog fights with
Your thyroid and pituitary glands
How the Zeppelin can fly at your command

And a generation lays down it's life
When after all they've done for you
The good parents die
Resurrected as your enemy
And when the girl you've started wanting
More than all you've ever wanted says no
She is your enemy too but, you survive

And from the trenches of
Your newly found opinions
Freshly dug, quickly abandoned
The white flag waves for an
Armistice on Christmas Day
Then your voice rings round
The family front room
Like a drill sergeant's in
Front of his platoon broken too soon
But, you survive

The second war, the war of 39 to 45
Begins when you identify your
Own inner Third Reich
The second war begins with
A sudden hypochondria
A visit to a doctor who waves
A piece of paper and says
'This time it's just a false alarm'
The war begins at work
With some intoxicating news
When the letter comes that
Offers you promotion
And ends when you decide to let them offer it
To younger men with more ambition
The war brings new perspectives when
You suddenly see through
The politics of power which possessed you
Through all your waking hours

And a generation lays down it's life
When the whizz kids of the industry
Slow down and die resurrected as your enemy
And when the woman who accepted you
When all the rest rejected you goes
She is your enemy too but, you survive

And at weekends you get custody
Of an only child
Already adolescent and unreconciled
Who laughs at you
You and your new-found piety
And his laugh rings round your
Faint desire for god
Like an order from an inner firing squad
Breaking the ties of blood but, you survive
But the third war is the war that never comes
The war that never comes to everyone
Begins the second after next by accident
Ends everything except it'self
The war brings nothing, the unimaginable
Which the old imagine all the time
Imagine imagination dying

And a generation lays down it's life
When it refuses the creation of
New ways to live
And when the great invention falls apart
Ripping through the atoms of your heart
The third war will start
Which no-one survives