Late Home Tonight (Part I)

Standing at the window
A farmer's wife in Oxfordshire
Glances at the clock it's nearly time for tea
She doesn't see
The phantom in the hedgerow dip its wings
Doesn't hear the engine sing.

But the cockpit's techno glow
Behind the Ray-Ban shine
The kid from Cleveland
In the comfort of routine
Scans his dials and smiles
Secure in the beauty of military life.

There is no right nor wrong
Only tin cans and cordite and white cliffs
And blue skies and flight, flight, flight
The beauty of military life
No questions, only orders and flight, only flight
What a beautiful sight in his wild blue dream
The eternal child leafs through his
War magazines
And his kind Uncle Sam feeds ten trillion in
Change into the total entertainment
Combat video game
And up here in the stands
The fans are goin' wild
The cheerleaders flip
When you wiggle your hip
And we all like the bit when you take
The jeans from the refrigerator and
Then the bad guy gets hit
And were you struck by the satisfying
Way the swimsuit sticks to her skin
Like BB gun days
When knives pierce autumn leaves
But that's okay see the children bleed
It'll look great on the TV.

And in Tripoli another ordinary wife
Stares at the dripping tap her old man hadn't
Time to fix
Too busy mixing politics and rhythm
In the street below.