Into the Night
An incident from the Spanish Civil War put to music.
NOTE: this was written about the Battle of BRUNETE. But when I came to make the video, some months after writing the song, I confused it with the Battle of Belchite. So, ignore references to Belchite please. Though the final photo of that abandoned town today is illustrative of the damage across the battle areas.
LYRICS:
They'd lain on the battlefield all day long
In the burning blaze of a Spanish sun
Machine gunned down if they tried to retreat
Their choice confined to death or defeat
Water flasks empty in the desert sand
What a cruel place to make a last stand
Boiling brains asking why they fight
Weary minds set on the coming flight
If only that sun would sink on down
And they could slink off out of town
To live another day to join the fight
They hoped they could vanish into the night
The harvest that this battle yields
Many comrades dead among the fields
Men who'd come to stop the Fascist surge
On this hilltop town had converged
After the victory support they lacked
And now they were under a counter attack
Bombed from above, shot at from below
Hanging on to hope as the sun sank low
CHORUS
Rotting bodies - a particular smell
Brunete, what a living hell
What had once been a victory
Now was a rout for the enemy
The first to go would be leaving soon
The snipers would not see them in the gloom
Ignoring the random shots outright
They silently slipped off into the night
CHORUS
CHORDS Am, G, F, E.