Mr Fox quoted part of this song on 17-Sep-2009:


WOODS OF DARNEY
As recorded by Richard Thompson on "You? Me? Us?" (1996)

I found your picture in a corporal's pocket.
His cold fingers still pressed it to his chest.
Sniper's bullet took his eyes and his breath away.
Now he lies out in the forest with the rest.

You look shy in your grandmother's weddin' dress,
Feet set wide like a farm girl stands,
Too young to love and too young to lose
In a cracked picture frame in a dead man's hands.

I kept it with me for the luck, for the magic.
Maybe fate wouldn't strike in the same place twice;
But something stirred and I dared to dream of you,
And I knew I'd look for you if I should survive.

When we stood down at last, it was easy to find you,
And mine was the shoulder you cried on that day—
Just an old comrade doin' his duty,
Bringin' the news from the woods of Darney.

When I showed you the picture, perhaps I felt jealousy
As your tears welled up with each reminisce,
And my hands may be rougher and my tongue may be coarser,
But I knew I could give you a love good as his.

Now we lie in the darkness together.
Often we lie without speaking this way.
As you stare in the dark, do you see your young corporal
Who never came back from the woods of Darney?

Is it him that you see when we make love together?
Is it him that you see when war fills the sky?
Was he there as you stood in your grandmother's wedding dress,
As we made our own vows, you and I?

Now the bugle calls; they say this is the big one.
A curse on the life of a soldier, you say,
But don't you know that's a soldier's small comfort
For the bugle to sound, and to hear and obey?

And I'll carry your picture, the one that he carried.
I'll wear your innocence and take my chance
On a frozen field, in a far-flung war,
To win back what we lost in a field in France.

And it's many a soldier who goes into battle.
Your corporal and I, we just hear and obey.
Perhaps we'll lie in the darkness together
With your love to bind us, in the woods of Darney.