Every Defeat a Divorce (Three Lions) - Los Campesinos!

I am not a crutch, although my knees are rife with woodworm

And the mealworms I misheard for lunch are rotting in my guts

With a childhood of fingernails that ripped my throat to shreds

A walk that chimes like church bells

From all these loose joints in my legs

These three lions that were sitting on my chest

Are clawing hard into my skin as I am gasping for my breath

And as they each play noughts and crosses

On the scratches they have left

I have to screw up both my eyes as it goes into sudden death

They whisper, «Really all these noughts are circles holed, bereft

And all these crosses, crucifixes

Spreading guilt and sense of dread»

And as we stumbled homeward up the hill

To where you used to live

The cold makes ice upon our cheeks

From all the tears that we have shed

These things rattle 'round my head

If he hasn’t blown the whistle

Then it isn’t quite the end

Every defeat a divorce

Although I look surprised, it’s par for the course, I guess

Every defeat a divorce

Although I look surprised, it’s par for the course, I guess

And I don’t really know now what I thought I knew then

You can lead a horse to water, but it won’t drown itself

This one family photograph always floats to the top

Like a beaming, bloated corpse, though having been made up

My memories are sepia, but the photograph is not

An historian is fucking with them, as deadly as garrotte

Where they’re standing in the kitchen

With his arms around her waist

With no idea of what’s to come and with a smile across your face

And all the fittings are the same but every other thing has changed

Must forget everything you know

As though your mouth and tongue estranged

Small comforts found in ABBA Gold and electronic chess

When West Clewes was my Waterloo, my most dramatic test

Now I’ve been walking down the shortcuts

And the alleys in the dark

Because I’m not scared of the shadows

They’re no blacker than my heart

These things rattle 'round my head

If he hasn’t blown the whistle

Then it isn’t quite the end

Every defeat a divorce

Although I look surprised, it’s par for the course, I guess

Every defeat a divorce

Although I look surprised, it’s par for the course, I guess

But how could I ever refuse?

I feel like I lose when I lose

And I don’t even know now what I thought I knew then

You can lead a horse to water, but it won’t drown itself