Father mows the lawn and Mother peels the potatoes
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Grandma lays the table alone
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And adjusts a photograph of the unknown soldier
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In this Holy of Holies, the Home
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And from the TV an unwatched voice
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Suggests the answer is to plant more trees
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The scrawl on the wall says what about the workers
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And the voice of the people says more salt please
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Mother shakesher head and reads aloud from the newspaper
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And Father puts another lock on the door
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And reflects upon the violent times that we are living in
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While chatting with the wife beater next door
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If paradise to you is cheap beer and overtime
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Home truths are easily missed
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Something that every football fan knows
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It only takes five fingers to form a fist
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And when it rains here It rains so hard
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But never hard enough to wash away the sorrow
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I'll trade my love today for a greater love tomorrow
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The lonely child looks out and dreams of independence
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From this family life sentence
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Mother seesbut does not read the peeling posters
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And can't believe that there's a world to be won
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But in the public schools and in the public houses
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The Battle of Britain goes on
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The constant promise of jam tomorrow
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Is the New Breed's litany and verse
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If it takes another war to fill the churches of England
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Then the world the meek inherit, what will it be worth
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Mother fights the tears and Father, his sense of outrage
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And attempts to justify the sacrifice
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To pass their creed down to another generation
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'Anything for the quiet life'
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In the Land of a Thousand Doses
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Where nostalgia is the opium of the age
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Our place in History is as
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clock watchers, old timers, window shoppers.
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-----------------
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The HomeFront
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Billy Bragg |