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The Decemberists, "The Soldiering Life"
(2003)

Ambling madly all over the town
The call to arms, you liken to a whisper
I liken to a radio
You were a brickbat, a bowery tough, so rough
They called you from a cartoon
Pulled out of your pantaloons

But you
My brother in arms
I'd rather I'd lose my limbs
Than let you come to harm

But you
My bombazine doll
The bullets may singe your skin
And the mortars may fall

But I
I never felt so much life
Than tonight
Huddled in the trenches
Gazing on the battlefield
Our rifles blaze away
We blaze away

Corporal Bradley of regiment five
In proud array standing by the bathing
Soldiers and the stevedores
We laid on the mattress and tumbled to sleep
Our eyes align, swaddled in our civvies
Cradled in our dungarees

But you
My brother in arms
I'd rather I'd lose my limbs
Than let you come to harm

But you
My bombazine doll
The bullets may singe your skin
And the mortars may fall

But I
I never felt so much life
Than tonight
Huddled in the trenches
Gazing on the battlefield
Our rifles blaze away
We blaze away
We blaze away
We blaze away


So I figured out what bugs me about the Decemberists: Colin Meloy sounds like Big Bird. Song's super-sweet, though. And how about those homotragic soldiers in the video?