In the hours before the fire rained down And turned the evening into day All was quiet, all was so serene And all our thoughts were far away With our loved ones, with our families A future in a better world With the hope that this all would make sense Our hearts jumped when the flags unfurled Not a breeze, not a breath, not a sigh All so tense, all so sacred, all stand-by We were young immortal patriots Proudly marching off to war In our mind's eye we were heroes all We couldn't see what lay in store We all saw ourselves on the battlefields Proud, with tombstones in our eyes Not in this muddy hell of hopelessness Paws just waiting round to die Not a breeze, not a breath, not a sigh All so tense, all so sacred, all stand-by What a waste, what an awful aftertaste A travesty embraced Soldiers cry but still wait around to die Believers in the biggest lie The never ending awe-inspiring endless nameless grind The smell, the mud, the hope you never thought you'd have to find The endless drone of shelling every day and every night And knowing only more wrong ever could make this be right You keep your head down, and pray to god and hope he hears your voice Through drumfire roaring, that makes it feel like your head will explode You see your brother disintegrate and rot before your eyes You dream of home and you wish you were back there safe and dry The barrage it left us deaf and blind I never heard the whistle bblow But I followed where the others lead Alive with patriotic glow In a dream machine guns opened up Mowing like the devils scythe I saw my peers, my generation fall In the mud I watched them die Not a breeze, not a breath, not a sigh All so tense, all so sacred, all stand-by To hope, to pray, to wait around to die No breeze, no life, no breath All gone, all gone, all dead No breeze, no life, no breath All gone, all gone, all dead