Parlez Vous Anglais

John, Johann, Jean was an average bloke
Didn't stand out from the crowd, just like ordinary folk
When the world turned upside down and the shit hit the fan
He answered the call to stand and be a man

Stand and be a man be a man
Your king and country needs you to be a man
Stand and be a man be a man
Fighting in a war you barely understand

He suffered in the trenches surviving no man's land
Saw things worse than nightmares you'd never understand
Shell shock, PTSD, frostbite and dysentery
He witnessed first hand the pages of history

History HIStory, nothing can describe the actuality
Horrors seared in his mind and what his eyes did see
More than in the pages of history

And now bent over double barely standing on two feet
He can't walk twenty paces down his own street
He had no hate for Germans even though he fought the Hun
But now lives in fear in his own land and what it has become

At night he hears the sound of shells exploding overhead
He needs to run for cover and crawls beneath the bed
At 96 the trauma is still as fresh today
As the nurse enters he whispers parlez vous Anglais?

Parlez vous Anglais, vous Anglais
The nightmares that he witnessed, they never went away
Parlez vous Anglais, vous Anglais
The nightmares that he witnessed, they never went away
Parlez vous Anglais, vous Anglais
Parlez vous Anglais, vous Anglais
Parlez vous Anglais, vous Anglais
The nightmares that he witnessed, they never went away
Parlez vous Anglais, vous Anglais
80 years later you could hear him say
Parlez vous Anglais, vous Anglais
At 96 the trauma is still as fresh today
Parlez vous Anglais, vous Anglais
You'll never be forgotten even though you've gone away