Well, I’m sitting in the tower
With a gun on my knee
Trying hard to stay awake tonight
Well, it’s lonely up here
It’s cold and boring, too
But I know in the end I’ll make it out all right
Well, I got my eyes on the road
Down in the valley below
Watching all those suspicious cars zoom by
How long will it take
Till I’ll be living it up
Instead of watching precious time go by
But there’s a bright side out there somewhere
Where the everyday ain’t so mean
There’s a real world out there somewhere
Where not everything is green
There’s a night life out there somewhere
Where all you gotta do is dance
Get on your feet and do the good times boogie
I’m on my elbows and knees
Crawling through thorns
Till my whole body is slashed and covered with blood
I try to close my eyes
But I can’t go to sleep
When my sleeping bag is sinking into the mud
But there’s a bright side out there somewhere ...
Big red and white bus take me home
Back to the city tonight
Back to the real world where my heart is
Where the ship isn’t run so tight
The going’s too tough to throw a wrench in the works
With all the time I serve
I work very hard all of a twelve-day week
But I’ll get what I deserve
But there’s a bright side out there somewhere ...
For all you dudes that live this kind of life
Don’t give up your hope
Someone sweet will be waiting for you
When you reach the end of your rope
There’s a light at the end of the tunnel
And when you get there you’ll see the darkness wasn’t all that bad
Just get on your feet and do the good times boogie
Get on your feet and do the good times boogie
Get on your feet and do the good times
Get on your feet and do the good times boogie
©2023 The Hesh Inc.
This is one of a crop of songs I wrote during my basic training with the Israel Defense Forces in May, 1985. I can tell you exactly where I wrote it: in the "bunker yishuv"—a tower placed inside the civilian community that abutted the military base where I was stationed. Basic was a very difficult period for me—it was not just physically taxing, as expected, but emotionally draining and laced with the disappointment I felt at being assigned to a combat unit (as opposed to the orchestra that I had passed the audition for about a month earlier) at the behest of the IDF's manpower needs. It was music—both the music that was popular at the time and the music that I wrote—that helped keep me sane throughout that time in my life.
Musically, this song was heavily influenced by "Stoop Down #39" by the J. Geils Band. Envisioned as part of an album about my experiences in the army, but never recorded or performed.
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