28th May

One, two, three From this maze of alley-ways you can look up and see the green hills Grey skies, dry stone walls, stretching all the way to the western islands Where the rebels have the best songs And you know them line by line For to have a cause you need an enemy to hand For all the flags and the banners And the bullets and the bombs For you know that the hillsides are inhabited by ghosts of martyrs that must be honoured And here the clouds roll across the sun So fast And the whiskey is neat and thick on the tongue Like blood As each island is pulled away from one another In the howling winds and stormy seas, if you have no clan then what are you For this is how we dance and this is what we sing And you can mock it all you like but it cannot be taken For commemoration bonfires and screeching armoured cars Driven by frightened men who never understand What it's like to be in fields and put your hand into the sacred soil And pull up stone after stone after stone And here the clouds roll across the sun So fast And the whiskey is neat and thick on the tongue Like blood We shared that tiny place with the outhouse at the end of the yard I had to share your taste in Russian music I saw how you still carried your soldier's gait And I knew that if it came to it, you'd know how to use it So what did you know that fateful twenty-eighth of May You said we shouldn't go to that place we always went to Like an angel with steel wings and inside information And I lived to tell the tale and I barely even asked the question And the clouds still roll across the sun So fast And the whiskey is neat and thick on the tongue Like blood I put my arms around her waist and I felt such desire But I really didn't know what I was getting myself into For it's the women who carry the burdens and always know too much And they get to read the signs and always clean the blood