Tom Waits – Day After Tomorrow (Audio, Lyrics)

Throwback to Tom Waits’ “Day After Tomorrow” track co-produced with Kathleen Brennan. Listen, stream, buy, read the lyrics, mp3 download.

Tom Waits Day After Tomorrow

This song is written from the perspective of a soldier who’s away at war. It takes the loose form of a letter written home, or sort of a monologue about goings-on.

Tom Waits – Day After Tomorrow (prod. Kathleen Brennan & Tom Waits)

Lyrics

I got your letter today and I miss you all so much here
I can’t wait to see you all and I’m counting the days, dear
I still believe that there’s gold at the end of the world
And I’ll come home to Illinois on the day after tomorrow

It is so hard and it’s cold here and I’m tired of taking orders
And I miss old Rockford town up by the Wisconsin border
What I miss, you won’t believe, shoveling snow and raking leaves
And my plane will touch down on the day after tomorrow

I close my eyes every night and I dream that I can hold you
They fill us full of lies, everyone buys about what it means to be a soldier
I still don’t know how I’m supposed to feel
About all the blood that’s been spilled with God on his throne
Get me back home on the day after tomorrow

You can’t deny, the other side don’t want to die anymore than we do
What I’m trying to say is, don’t they pray to the same God that we do?
Tell me how does God choose whose prayers does he refuse?
Who turns the wheel? Who rolls the dice on the day after tomorrow?

I am not fighting for justice, I am not fighting for freedom
I am fighting for my life and another day in the world here
I just do what I’ve been told, we’re just the gravel on the road
And only the lucky ones come home on the day after tomorrow

And the summer, it too will fade and with it brings the winter’s frost, dear
And I know we too are made of all the things that we have
Lost here, I’ll be twenty-one today, I been saving all my pay
And my plane will touch down on the day after tomorrow