Both as a standalone and as part of the DSOTS album, you can take this lyric as read. As a matter of public record, Jourgensen's drug intake was legendary even in the 1980s. By the late 90s, in his own words, he was grappling with massive addiction issues and had lost almost everything: friends, spouse, money and had nearly died more than once. "Dark Side of the Spoon" is a both funny & sad title for an album made by a musical genius who was losing the plot; and this song is a message to his fans & friends saying he knows it. It's painful to listen to so I'm glad the "Keith Richards of industrial metals" wised up and cleaned up. Well done sir.
I needed to explain out my thoughts
Before I could write out what I've meant to say from the start
Here it is, stripped of meter and unobscured by metaphor
In 1914, when the Christmas lights burned brighter than the stars
The carols echoed from the trenches
We forgot about the war
In "no man's land," he showed me a picture of you, his wife
It was remarkable how much you looked like mine
That night we talked in fragments and exchanged cigarettes
I guess we never were friends, but we still exchanged addresses
So that we could visit and write
If we both made it out of that damned war alive
But down the chain of command
Fraternization, over night, became an act of treason
I didn't think much of it until I saw him emerge with a white flag
As he smiled and walked closer, I screamed "Go back!"
My commanding officer must have heard me
Because he turned his gun on me and said
"You're the one who will shoot
If you don't there won't be one widow, there will be two"
At first, I shot off to the right, hoping that he might get scared
But he kept coming closer waving a letter
I said a prayer
And wished that everything leading up to this moment had never transpired
And then I pulled the trigger
The pain never seems to fade
On a reconnaissance mission, a week later
I managed to snag the letter
Which warned us of an air raid and offered us refuge in their trench
I'm not writing to ask for forgiveness from you
Because after all this time I still can't to forgive myself
And since the day that I killed him every second has been a hell
Where the pain never seems to fade
Never seems to fade
Another world must be possible
Another world must be possible
Before I could write out what I've meant to say from the start
Here it is, stripped of meter and unobscured by metaphor
In 1914, when the Christmas lights burned brighter than the stars
The carols echoed from the trenches
We forgot about the war
In "no man's land," he showed me a picture of you, his wife
It was remarkable how much you looked like mine
That night we talked in fragments and exchanged cigarettes
I guess we never were friends, but we still exchanged addresses
So that we could visit and write
If we both made it out of that damned war alive
But down the chain of command
Fraternization, over night, became an act of treason
I didn't think much of it until I saw him emerge with a white flag
As he smiled and walked closer, I screamed "Go back!"
My commanding officer must have heard me
Because he turned his gun on me and said
"You're the one who will shoot
If you don't there won't be one widow, there will be two"
At first, I shot off to the right, hoping that he might get scared
But he kept coming closer waving a letter
I said a prayer
And wished that everything leading up to this moment had never transpired
And then I pulled the trigger
The pain never seems to fade
On a reconnaissance mission, a week later
I managed to snag the letter
Which warned us of an air raid and offered us refuge in their trench
I'm not writing to ask for forgiveness from you
Because after all this time I still can't to forgive myself
And since the day that I killed him every second has been a hell
Where the pain never seems to fade
Never seems to fade
Another world must be possible
Another world must be possible
Lyrics submitted by eltroyo11
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