"The Legionnaire's Lament" lyrics - THE DECEMBERISTS

I'm a legionnaire, camel in disrepair
Hoping for a frigid air to come passing by
I am on reprieve, lacking my joie de vivre
Missing my gay Paris in this desert dry

And I wrote my girl, told her I would not return
I've terribly taken a turn for the worse now, I fear
It's been a year or more since they shipped me to this foreign shore
Fighting in a foreign war so far away from my home

If only some rain would fall on the houses and the boulevards
And the sidewalk bagatelles, it's like a dream
With the roar of cars and the lolling of the cafe bars
The sweetly sleeping sweeping of the Seine

Lord, I don't know if I'll ever be back again

Medicating in the sun, pinched doses of laudanum
Longing for the old fecundity of my homeland
Curses to this mirage, a bottle of ancient Shiraz
A smattering of distant applause is ringing in my poor ears

On the old left bank, my baby in a char-a-banc
Riding up the width and length of the Champs-Elysees

If only some rain would fall on the houses and the boulevards
And the sidewalk bagatelles, it's like a dream
With the roar of cars and the lolling of the cafe bars
The sweetly sleeping sweeping of the Seine

Lord, I don't know if I'll ever be back again

If only some rain would fall on the houses and the boulevards
And the sidewalk bagatelles, it's like a dream
With the roar of cars and the lolling of the cafe bars
The sweetly sleeping sweeping of the Seine

Lord, I don't know if I'll ever be back again
Be back again
Be back again
Be back again
Oh
Oh
Oh