Lyrics

One of the heroes in the book "Thief" by the Soviet novelist Leonid Leonov said: "In childhood, it happened, only in fist fights I found real friends... And was never wrong! Because, only in a fight the whole human nature comes out".

Well, they called me ‘The Sarajevo Sandman’ -
I had a lights out kick to the head.
It was the cage that taught me how to love as I killed;
It was the cage that taught me never to hate.
I was a child soldier back home in Tuzla.
I’ve been fighting men since I was ten.
I wore my dead brother’s football jersey
Throwin’ grenades made of Coca Cola cans.

I had a battery acid smell in my throat
It was the smell of adrenaline
In the cage I felt Zen; I felt closest to God,
In the cage I loved and never feared a thing.
And I still miss the River Bosna.
I miss that green water now and again.
I work nightshifts cleaning out offices
Thinkin’ ‘bout what I am and what I was then.

And this world is all just one heart
Where love and fear is all that ever beats
O, I wish I was still in the cage
Where I loved more than I feared.
Where I loved more than I feared.

Yeah, we got out soon after the war,
We had a mattress on the floor on Islington.
Back home Dad was an economist,
In Rexdale he took construction.
I went to school at Thistletown Collegiate,
Ten minutes I was fightin’ Somalis.
I joined a fight club at Sheppard and Dufferin.
Ten months I was fightin’ for the real money.

It was the Rebel Biker Club –
They took a fifteen hundred dollar ante.
I remember one night showing up in my jeans –
But if you’re a fighter it’s your eyes that win.
And my blood mixed with his blood.
I needed him; he needed me.
We were brothers and he knew that I loved him,
Even as his skull cracked under my heel.

And this world is all just one heart
Where love and fear is all that ever beats
O, I wish I was still in the cage
Where I loved more than I feared.
Where I loved more than I feared.

One night I took 6 grand from a Russian;
He wore the tats of the Vory v Zakone.
Ah, but his stiff eyes of fear gave him away.
And on his stars I made him kneel for me.
The next day I was workin’ in a new cage:
Makin’ 50 000 dollars a week.
Ah, but money taken from the devil
Goes back to the devil, so to speak.

Tonight I open up the hood of my car
Just to smell that battery acid.
Yeah, I miss the pain, I miss the hook
When the fists miss, the elbow lands.
I miss the ring girls, I miss my wife.
I miss my daughter, Madeline, on my knee.
I miss the sober days when I could still say:
That I loved more than I feared.
That I loved more than I feared.

And this world is all just one big heart
Where love and fear is all that ever beats
O, I wish I was still in the cage
Where I loved more than I feared.
Where I loved more than I feared.

Well, they called me ‘The Sarajevo Sandman’ -
I had a lights out kick to the head.