Love Ire & Song Lyrics

Well we've been a good few hours drinking
So I'm going to say what everyone's thinking
If we're stuck on this ship and it's sinking
Then we might as well have a parade

Cause if it's still going to hurt in the morning
And a better plan's yet to get forming
Then where's the harm spending an evening
In manning the old barricades?


So come on, old friends, to the streets
Let's be 1905, but not 1917

Let's be heroes, let's be martyrs, let's be radical thinkers
Who never have to test drive the least of their dreams

Let's divide up the world into the damned and saved
And then ride to the valley like the old Light Brigade
And straighten our backs, and we won't be afraid
And they'll celebrate our deaths with a national parade

So come on, let's be young
Let's be crass enough to care
Let's refuse to live and learn
Let's make all our mistakes again, yes
And then darling, just for one day, yeah
We can fight and we can win
And if only for a little while
We could insist on the impossible
Leave the mourning to the morning
Yeah, pain can be killed
With aspirin tablets and vitamin pills
But memories of hope, and of glorious defeat
Are a little bit harder to beat

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About

Genius Annotation

This is the eponymous song from Frank Turner’s breakthrough album, Love Ire & Song. The album deals primarily with entering adulthood and accepting your mature self, and this track is one of the songs where that theme comes out strongest.

The title is a riff on the classic Greek declaration of what’s important in life, “Wine, women, and song.” He told Stereokill:

The three things you need in life to be content. Love, ire–righteous anger–and song, as in, you know, like a guitar and some Gram Parsons tunes.

Frank has a graduate degree in European history and identifies as a libertarian. The song references his politics as well as historical and literary events like the 1917 Russian Revolution and Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade.

The song is primarily set to an acoustic guitar, but as it builds into a crescendo, percussive elements are added, and so are strings.

Q&A

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Credits
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Written By
Release Date
March 31, 2008
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