Breathe
Around Lurgan in Armagh
where distant struggle nears.
A young woman drives home at night
As if nothing to fear.
A mother to three children
A worker and a wife.
Her strives against oppressors
Would end her young life.
Yet still I Breathe across the land.
The crowd cries freedom over top the band
And in the air over sorrows cry
Hands raised up that no more will have to die.
At 20 after 7
The distant wake was torn.
Drums of joy from lodges
As twisted parties form.
Their disrespect for life and hope
For peace across the land.
Sectarian ways now slapped the face
of the mourning piper band.
As sorrow turns to violence
And the crash of gunfire sounds.
Give us back our leader
To help us keep our ground.
The RUC responded
with another plastic round.
Rosemary they needed you
to keep peace in Portadown. |
Song for Maya
Days pass faster every week.
Cold winter turns smoldering summer heat
Inside I think I'm 17.
Black boots and a pair of baggy jeans.
Everything changed the first time I saw your perfect face.
We met as kind of a surprise.
Blond hair and a pair of big blue eyes.
You make me want to act my age.
House, car, office, big pay raise.
But that time when your fever got so high
And you just sat there starring and smiling
Well I almost cried Why can't you feel it
The recent past has disappeared
Time blends form year to year though year
I can't wait to see what you become
The moon the stars the sea the sun
Some day I hope that you confide
Untouched by the madness from outside
Before your innocence dies
Why can't you feel it
Flame burns from left to right the same
Then joins conceiving life in flame
Walk on engulfing all you see
Burn from within eternally
I see how people look at you
When you do the things you do
And see, I feel it too
So why can't you feel it
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Jon and Mary
Jon from the house just down the road
Basks in photographs of travels and new clothes
Keeps careful watch upon his things
Gives just enough to let everyone see just how he is
He brings out Mary to events
Raising money for a foreign government
It give prestige in how we feel
500 bucks a plate is really quite a deal
Way to go
Looks like you made it as a wallet toting rebel
In a land where nothing's wrong
Way to go
Looks like you made it as a wallet toting rebel
You've even got a song
Hey, way to go
The this here deck put on last fall
It's made of wood that came from prisoners crumbling walls
See this here 3 by 3 white mesh
Some guys who's nose was blown on this served in the Kesh
Mary's a good one to have around
She decorates our house in green and arny brown
But I can't keep her out too late
She's got this problem where it's hard to stay awake
And now they're walking over here
But I don't feel like talking shop over a beer
Mary's dressed 20 years too young
Jon like the mayor tries to wave to everyone
But they don't bother saying hi
Some guy between us is more important in their eyes
Bragging with whom they'd spent the night
Can't you 2 see you're exploiting human rights
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She
All the rain's been ripped out of the sky
And all the lakes and rivers have run dry
It seems a shame to find
The moon so far away controls the tide
Nazis dressed like saviors came through town
And brought our children's knees down to the ground
It seems a shame to find
The sun so far away controls how the moon might shine
And she stands alone and listens to no one
And she slams the phone on anyone listening
And she talks a good game
On anyone left who had brought her fame
But I'll remember
The deaf can see the ground begin to shake
The blind still feel the rumble of this quake
Man dies from just 1 shot
He who ain't got a lot
Well time is all you've got
Buckle up it's time to take a ride
to see what's already been left inside
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Alls been said and done
This feelings felt along the streets by the people of Portlaoise
From Derry to New York city and Glasgow in the east
That Blair's done everything to keep this GFA a lie
And the Reverend Dr. Ian Paisley just won't fucking die
So wake the kids and light the candle at both ends
It's gonna start
For republican or otherwise it's time to do your part
By some luck and opportunity there came this retched band
With ability to get most of their friends to understand
And they took it upon themselves to get them out to cheer
Well you won't be marching down Garvaghy Road again this year
When all's been said and done then we'll still raise our fists up high
For unity, solidarity, under a free united sky
Then you can tell your grandchildren and tell them oh so proud
That when the green beer Irish ruled the land
You stood for freedom proud
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You gotta go
I've got pride
It's sometimes all I've got
We've spent so long
Trying to work this out
But I can see that I have taken a toll on you
You swore to things that I knew could never be true
So I've taken the time to pack up all of your things
Just go and we'll forget about everything
Each time you say your going to leave me
I get down on my knees and thank God it will all be over soon
Can't you see you gotta go
But then the ground beneath my feet starts to fall apart
And I'm begging lord please
Don't make me throw out you out of here
Embarrassed for all to see
Can't you see you gotta go
Tell me why
Because I can't see
why you destroyed
What I though made me me
Was it cause you came into this thinking I'm better then you
And had you hoped that with a bit of fighting that we'd make it through
You hadn't counted on the friends I made of the people you hate And that's what made this great
Dress your part
Get out the big fanfare
With big parades
For anybody who cares
You're the one who makes a game of everything that you do
It matters more what people think then what was really the truth
I know you think you'd do a favor for me if you're to stay
But really, that's OK
|
Stranger Things
I wake to find that everything has changed
As if people aren't the same
As if the world's been turned upside down
Even if just for 1 day
They say that they're tearing the walls all down
And when the last brick hit the ground
People on both sides seemed surprised that everyone looked the same
And I'd had a feeling things would never go that way again
But stranger things can happen in your sleep
But after the war starts to settle down
We'll pretend that it's always been like this
Then it's best if we just forget this way
Had ever been
I pray that the day would never end
That the past won't return again
Ti ar la ann to forget and remember
What once used to offend
But may be we're just making ourselves insane
Believing there's no more pain
To wish upon a star then find
It's only just a plane
A promise will never mean a thing
To a people who'd forgotten what it supposed to bring
So until they follow our lead and lay down their guns
Then we'll always know we've won
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Shame
I sometimes wonder how you
close your eyes and sleep at night
Working for the English RUC
When you know damn well deep inside
The men that you shot down were only trying
To make their children free
When you go home at night
do you kiss your loving wife goodnight
and tell her what you did at work that day
Or do you close your eyes without a word without a sigh
And dream of knocking down the IRA
All the times we've fought you and we've held you every way
You be sure you'll never see that day
Have you got no Shame
It took the bombing of your mint for you to talk to us
The pocketbook is not an easy mend
So you signed agreements giving half control to us
But knowing you'd pull home rule in the end
Every time you sold us peace you'd squander it away
Just cause you can't beat the IRA
Even the blight could not diffuse your thoughts of bigotry
Millions dying right before your eyes
So you shipped the men to Botany Bay to work the land
While families starved or got disease and died
How'd you let so many die yet throw some food away
Why couldn't you pass your scraps our way
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All this time
Look out at the darkness
Do you still want to go
Or were we just talking
Killing time, staring out the window
As the ground outside rose from the snow
Bundle up tight, grab your coat and your hat
‘cause outside the air stings from the cold
We can eat on the way to wherever the hell it is
That we're going
But they don't make Cheveys
Like they did way back when
And 40 miles away doesn't really count as starting again
And I can't understand why you looked so relieved
When the toe truck guy showed up and said
Where you goin?
Yet you smiled at me and said
Please take us home
All this time we could have been
Working towards what we needed
All this time should have been
Nonexistent memory
We're only young once, we don't need to be saved
‘cause history rarely remembers the ones well behaved
The sun still rises out back and sets across the street
And the mailman still comes late each day
But he doesn't stop to talk to everyone that he sees
And the queen of the block still sits on her throne
With her balls in my yard its' mine
Fame
Seems the more things change around here
the more things will forever be the same
Our youth stood sternly before us
Like a soldier facing his first war
And before us stands a room
Filled with all of our stuff
At the end there's an open door
Put your stuff down over there
and comfortable here next to me
Because the first chance I get
I'm locking up that door and I'm throwing away the key
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