The Last Day Of June 1934

Album: Past, Present and Future (1974)
Play Video
  • 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 nineteenth

    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 nineteen thirty four Writer/s: ALISTAIR IAN STEWART
    Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 1

  • Mark from London, EnglandFacts about his private life have since come to light-it was far from blameless!.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Graduation Songs

Graduation SongsFact or Fiction

Have you got the smarts to know which of these graduation song stories are real?

Gary Brooker of Procol Harum

Gary Brooker of Procol HarumSongwriter Interviews

The lead singer and pianist for Procol Harum, Gary talks about finding the musical ideas to match the words.

Director Nick Morris ("The Final Countdown")

Director Nick Morris ("The Final Countdown")Song Writing

Nick made some of the biggest videos on MTV, including "The Final Countdown," "Heaven" and "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)."

Dan Reed

Dan ReedSongwriter Interviews

Dan cracked the Top 40 with "Ritual," then went to India and spent 2 hours with the Dalai Lama.

Julian Lennon

Julian LennonSongwriter Interviews

Julian tells the stories behind his hits "Valotte" and "Too Late for Goodbyes," and fills us in on his many non-musical pursuits. Also: what MTV meant to his career.

Matt Sorum

Matt SorumSongwriter Interviews

When he joined Guns N' Roses in 1990, Matt helped them craft an orchestral sound; his mezzo fortes and pianissimos are all over "November Rain."