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about

Tom Robinson was very much the star of this occasion, not that he behaved as such at all. He had fled the pressures of the music industry and had been hanging out in Berlin without much public profile in the UK. He’d recently returned with a song in his back pocket, War Baby, written in a sauna in Germany. “Only the very young and very beautiful can be so aloof.” Too right, Tom.

War Baby had its first outing here at the Albany, though it wasn’t to be released for another six months. He was accompanied by Mark Ramsden on a blistering sax. Afterwards he described having Mark as like taking your Rolls Royce to do your laundry. I’m still trying to work out if that’s a compliment or not.

lyrics

Only the very young and the very beautiful can be so aloof
Hanging out with the boys, all swagger and poise
I don't even care what other people are there
I just stare and stare and stare

I see your shadow in the swimming pool
I see your face in the shaving mirror
Time and time and time again
I follow your footsteps so quietly up the backstairs
And I hope and I pray you ain't never going to find me there

Smooth skin and tenderness long ago on a dark night
Wish I could see you once again just to remember it was true
I wanna be still beside you, quiet and still beside you
Listening to your breathing and feeling your warmth again

War Baby
War Baby
War Baby - I'm scared, so scared
Of whatever it is you keep putting me through

I don't think I could stand another ten years of this fighting
All this stabbing and wounding, only getting my own back
I don't wanna battle you to your feet and knees and elbows
When I'm kneeling by the candle at the foot of my own bed

Corresponding disasters every night on the TV
Sickening reality keep gripping me in its guts
All my friends talk and joke and laugh about Armageddon
But like a nightmare it's still waiting there
At the end of every day

War Baby
Woah War Baby
I'm talking about the war, baby
I'm scared, so scared
Whatever it is you keep putting me through

I'm not quite the sucker you've always taken me for
I do it out of love and you imagine you're taking me in
But later that same evening we were out in the car talking
I suddenly wondered who the hell it was we'd all been trying to fool

'Cause you were the first one I ever wanted
And it's you I come home to at the end of every day
Like a mother-sucking baby, demanding and so helpless
A little old balding man, all wrinkles and bulging eyes

War Baby
War Baby - this means
War Baby - I'm scared, so scared
Whatever it is you keep putting me through
War Baby
Talking 'bout the Third World War, baby
War Baby

credits

from Coming Out - Ready or Not [an LGBTQ+ Charity release], released January 1, 1983
Music and lyrics - Tom Robinson
Sax solos by Mark Ramsden
Vocals and guitar - Tom Robinson

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Homo Promos London, UK

The excitement generated by the audience at the largest gay benefit concert ever staged in this country is very apparent on this album. On December 8th 1982 the Albany Empire was filled to capacity with gay women and men eager to support this Lesbian Line / Gay Switchboard benefit, Though most of the performers will be new to you, at that time they represented over 50 years of LGBT music making. ... more

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