Al Stewart

The last day of June 1934

Al Stewart


The morning is humming, it's a quarter past nine 
I should be working down in the vines 
But I'm lying here with a good friend of mine 
Watching the sun in her hair 

I pick the grapes from the hills to the sea 
The fields of France are a home to me 
Ah, but today lying here is a good place to be 
I can't go anywhere 

But as we slip in and out of embrace 
Like some old and familiar place 
Reflecting all of my dreams in her face like before 
On the last day of June 1934 

Just out of Cambridge in a narrow country lane 
A bottle-green Bentley in the driving rain 
Slips and skids round a corner, then pulls straight again 
Heads up the drive to the door 

The lights of the party shine over the fields 
Where lovers and dancers watch catherine wheels 
And argue realities digging their heels 
In a world that's finished with war 

And a lost wind of summer blows into the streets 
Past the tramps in the alleyways, the rich in silk sheets 
And Europe lies sleeping, 
you feel her heartbeats through the floor 
On the last day of June 19... 

On the night that Ernst Roehm died voices rang out 
In the rolling Bavarian hills 
And swept through the cities and danced in the gutters 
Grown strong like the joining of wills 

Oh echoed away like a roar in the distance 
In moonlight carved out of steel 
Singing "All the lonely, so long and so long 
You don't know how I long, how I long 
You can't hold me, I'm strong now I'm strong 
Stronger than your law" 

I sit here now by the banks of the Rhine 
Dipping my feet in the cold stream of time 
And I know I'm a dreamer, I know I'm out of line 
With the people I see everywhere 

The couples pass by me, they're looking so good 
Their arms round each other, they head for the woods 
They don't care who Ernst Roehm was, no reason they should 
Just a shadow that hangs in the air 

But I thought I saw him cross over the hill 
With a whole ghostly army of men at his heel 
And struck in the moment it seemed to be real like before 
On the last day of June 1934