Lyrics

Request from Nano:

You Have My Word

———————————————-

Verse 1.

When I can’t hold a shovel, when I can’t find my key,

Will you dig through the rubble, and find that key for me?

When clouds obscure the heavens and I bemoan what’s lost

Will you sing a verse of Stardust and melt away the frost?

Verse 2.

When I can’t read the crossword, will you call out the clues?

Will you do up these laces, when I can’t reach my shoes?

Hold this shaking hand so I don’t lose one whiskey drop

Will you move my glass to safety when I start to nod off?

Middle

I say now that I’ll be yours forever, that’s for real, you have my word

And down the crooked Nore we’ll go together, that’s the deal you have my word

You have my word.

Verse 3.

When you can’t do your lipstick, tie up or comb your hair

I’ll find your favourite blanket and fix you in your chair

And when you start to ramble, I’ll try to understand

When you cry inexplicably, I’ll sit and hold your hand.

Verse 4.

When I can’t hold a shovel and you can’t see the sun

We’ll sit and hold each other and tell ourselves we’ve won.

———————————————

Go Your Own Way

Verse 1.

The room was overcrowded on the day that I was found

You couldn’t swing a cat in there and I weighed 13 pounds

My granny took me over and sang a song for me

She sang, Sack a da doddle oddle oh, sack a da doddle andy.

Verse 2.

I still can’t tie my shoelace it never made the list

My mother taught me lots of stuff but somehow that was missed

I asked her why it happened? She said, “I can’t recall”

But you know I did the best I could to help you stand up tall.

Chorus

And go your own way sing your own song

It might not rhyme for some but you have to move the job along

On your own terms, in your own time

You’ll find it works out better down the line.

Verse 3.

I thought I’d found the answers, when I found alcohol

It danced me down the moonlit street and broke my every fall

You might say we were lovers, but she flattered to deceive

I cried, and cried the day she left, though I knew she had to leave.

Verse 4.

Wilbur came from Utah and tried to set me straight

He said, “The end of the world is nigh you know,” I said “t’will have to wait

I too much work in progress and brand new dreams to start”

I said “Wilbur keep on moving, you’re breaking my heart”.

Words and Music: Mick Hanly/ Philip Begley.

Visit  Mick Hanly Collected page for the words of the better known songs.

Visit the Requests page to see some of the songs that you the readers have requested.

17.5.2013

Hello,

I looking for the lyrics of the great song : "Open Those Gates"
Can you add them to this page http://www.mickhanly.com/lyrics/#Mick_Hanly_Collected
Thank you

Mo chairde

Michel

11.4.2013

Enjoyed your music for so many years and still enjoying it, trying to find lyric sheet for the “Glasgow Barber” at hte moment. I’m a builder but unrepentant here is why http://www.irishvernacular.com/ and look at viking longhouse on facebook, Fingal Living History. Keep it going,

&nb sp;                              Mícheál

The Glasgow Barber

Verse1.

When I first sailed over from Belfast to Greenock

My blood felt congealed at leaving the sod

And my heart swelled as big as the cot I sailed o’er on

When the gaffer refused to give Paddy a job.

Verse 2.

When I landed in Glasgow I inquired for Queen Street

Called into a barber’s and he bid me sit down

And he placed me so fair in the arms of a chair

And he covered me over with his grandmother’s gown.

Verse 3.

Ah, said he, ‘are you shaving?’ Said I ‘are you raving?’

‘The hair on my head I want cut in a row

And before you’d be going I’d like you’d be knowing

It’s the style that we have in the County Mayo’.

Verse 4.

Well he placed his steel clinkers above my eye winkers

You’d swear t’was the ramps of Moll Flannigan’s fan

He oiled it and streaked it he combed it and sleaked it

He oiled front and rear with his two little hands.

Verse 5.

‘Ah’ says he ‘Irish Pat you’ll pay fourpence for that

It’s a cut that an Irishman seldom does show

It’s the ladies conceit aye and you will look neat

When you land with your friends in the County Mayo’.

Verse 6.

‘Ah bad luck to your soul do you think I’m a ‘looby’

The hell to your soul sure the hair was my own

It’s before I’d make bargains with the barbers of Scotland

I’d rather make bargains with the landlords at home’.

Verse 7.

Well he called in two bobbies for the take Irish Paddy

With hats on their heads like large rucks of straw

Says they ‘Torra musha’ say’s I ‘Arra gusha’

‘Tis a word that we use in the County Mayo.

Verse 8.

Then I took to me stick and they took to their batons

The police and the barber I soon did take down

And I left them a mark for to buy sticking plaster

And straight took my way to the east of the town.

Verse 9.

When I looked in the glass you’d swear I was an ass

For me lugs stood so high and me head hung so low

Bad luck to their trestles their bells and steam whistles

And hurrah for the girls from the County Mayo.

I found this in a book called Folksongs Sung in Ulster by Robin Morton. In the same book, I also found a good version of the Hills of Granemore,  which Monroe (Mícheál O’Domhnaill &Mick Hanly) released as a single with an early version of Fionnghuala, later recorded  by the Bothy Band.

I’m afraid the ‘Barber’ doesn’t wear the years as well as Granemore, but that’s usually the way with ‘fun’ songs.

Marathon lyrics.

Marathon.

                                            Marathon                          

Verse 1.

I heard a pounding in my ear. It grew louder and I cursed,

Thought I’d broken all my rivals, as my lungs began to burst

I saw him in the corner of my eye, breathing much easier than me,

And I wished that he would fall down and die, and not take this precious dream from me.

Verse 2.

I watched him vanish in my tears, like a lover in the rain;

I dug deeper than a miner but there was nothing left to claim;

With all of my worst fears realised and no stone left unturned

The only thing of worth I found was a prayer I’d learned

Chorus.

Lord when the storm leaves me helpless……. take my hand;

Take my hand.

And Lord when the battle leaves me breathless….help me stand;

Help me stand.

Verse 3.

In the end nobody died though it felt like death to me

We lay down with our heartache, in the cold rain and the debris

When hearts and minds repair in time a new thirst returns

But most of us found what we were looking for

In the kinship and the burn.

Chorus:

Damaged Halo    

                                       Damaged halo

Verse 1.

Why would a clever boy

Leave school with a star,

And walk out through the gates feeling worthless;

Put the pennies that he saved

On a cheap sunburst guitar,

Work his fingers to the bone to be noticed.

Verse 2.

Why would a clever boy

Take his schoolbooks and abscond,

With his fear around his neck like a damaged halo?

Be hounded out the gate

‘cause he couldn’t get beyond,

The first line of ‘tháinig long ó valparaiso’.

Chorus.

Look at me, look at me I can play, I can play

Look at me, look at me am I not worth lovin’?

Look at me, I can play, the forty shades of green

And some Slim Whitman.

Verse 3.

Why would a clever boy

When all is said and done,

Turn to every bauble stick become addicted;

Tongue sad and blue

Forever on the run,

Like a poor beast in the rain too blind to fix it.

Verse 4.

We were damaged by the score,

The clever and the dumb,

With our scars were shunted into every siding.

For the voiceless there are tears,

And a million more to come,

Will you tell me where in Christ was Jesus hiding?

Verse 5.

Here’s a postscript to make you smile,

You know my Valparaiso friend?

For years I wondered how he wore that halo?

He was apprenticed did his time,

Climbed the ladder in the end,

Then one day he pulled a ticket in the Lotto.

Where the Buck Stops Nowhere 

                               Where Buck Stops Nowhere

Verse 1.

I hear them in the sky again

Irish cowboys on the wing

Flying high above the goldmine down below

Untouchable, crooked, bent…..

God knows where the billions went

But hey ho! We’re all off to the races oh,

Where? Right here,

Where the buck, stops nowhere.

.

Verse 2.

For those who scrimp and those who save

Got buried ‘neath the tidal wave

It hurts to hear these puppets on the radio

Shameless, no remorse,

Pulling figures from their arse

But hey ho! that’s how they insult us, oh

Where? Right here, 

Where the buck, stops nowhere.

Chorus

And low lie the Fields of Athenry

They’re lower than I ever thought they’d be

Fat fingers in the till… moving billions round at will

With slight-of-hand the watchdog doesn’t see…

But maybe he’s lost his memory?

Where? Right here,

Where the buck stops nowhere.

Verse 3.

Champagne Charlie knows the ropes

He feeds our meagre dreams and hopes

We have it so we’ll spend it, now that’s the way to go?

Excuse me while I work the tent,

Oil the wheels, reinvent,

The same old rigmarolioliolio.

Verse 4.

No one’s guilty no one pays

For the firewall brick never laid                                                        

But the fireman says “wake up, all out, ye have to go”

To a brand new home in the Royal Hotel

A single room in a brand new hell

But hey ho! That’s how the pyrite crumbles, oh!

Where? Right here,

Where the buck stops nowhere.

Chorus 

And low lie the Fields of Athenry

They’re lower than I ever thought they’d be

Poor Paddy will feel the stab

When picking up the tab

For the bumper cowboy banking jamboree

Where? Right here,

Where the buck stops nowhere.

Addend

I hear them in the sky again, Irish cowboys on the wing

Where?….right here

Where the buck stops nowhere

                                  Great Nations of Europe

Verse 1

The great nations of Europe
Had gathered on the shore
They’d conquered what was behind them
And now they wanted more
So they looked to the mighty ocean
And took to the western sea
The great nations of Europe in the sixteenth century

Chorus.

Hide your wives and daughters
Hide your groceries too
Great nations of Europe coming through

Verse 2.

The Grand Canary Islands
First land to which they came
They slaughtered all the canaries
Which gave the land its name
There were natives there called Guanches
Guanches by the score
Bullets, disease, the Portuguese, and they weren’t there anymore
Now they’re gone, they’re gone, they’re really gone
You’ve never seen anyone so gone
They’re a picture in a museum
Some lines written in a book
But you won’t find a live one no matter where you look

Chorus.

Hide your wives and daughters
Hide your groceries too
Great nations of Europe coming through

Bridge A

Columbus sailed for India
Found Salvador instead
He shook hands with some Indians and soon they all were dead
They got TB and typhoid and athlete’s foot
Diphtheria and the flu
Excuse me great nations coming through!

Bridge B.

Balboa found the Pacific
And on the trail one day
He met some friendly Indians
Whom the church told him were gay
So he had them torn apart by dogs on religious grounds they say
The great nations of Europe were quite holy in their way
Now they’re gone, they’re gone, they’re really gone
You’ve never seen anyone so gone
Some bones found in a canyon
Some paintings in a cave
There’s no use trying to save them
There’s nobody left to save

Chorus.

Hide your wives and daughters
Hide your sons as well
With the great nations of Europe you never can tell.

Verse 3.

From where you and I are standing
At the start of this century
Europes have sprung up everywhere as you and I can see
But there upon horizon is the possibility
Some bug from out of China might come for you and me
Destroying everything in its path
From sea to shining sea
Like the great nations of Europe
In the sixteenth century.

                                                         Words & Music : Randy Newman

                                           If this be love

Verse 1.

From time to time I lose my way

When clouds obscure my guiding star

And no wind moves this languid sail

I think of you and where you are

There’s none but you I’d rather see

None but you I’d rather call

If this be love, there go I

For you are the brightest star of all.

Chorus

You’re the brightest star of all

And if this be love, there go I

There go I.

Verse 2.

From dawn to dusk in all my dreams

You tread as none has tread before

So lightly your feet do touch

The golden field the primrose floor

There’s none but you I’d rather see

There’s none but you I’d rather call

If this be love there go I

For you are the brightest star of all.

                  Dreams Of Better Days To Come 

Verse 1. 

Rain keeps drumming on window and tile 

The trees and the roses have shed all their style 

The swallows have flown to the banks of the Nile 

And oh……oh I’m trying to hold on…… 

Verse 2. 

Aching for respite day after day 

It seems like the summer’s been stolen away? 

There’s a ghost in the air, he’s the devil to pay 

And oh……oh it’s hard to hold on 

To dreams of better days…….dreams of better days…. 

Dreams of better days to come. 

Chorus. 

I have to believe in tomorrow 

And hold up my end of the deal 

The world as we know it has turned on its head 

And there’s no going back, no going back,  

No going back to the old one…… 

Verse 3. 

All we can do is keep seeking the light 

And turn up our coat to reality’s bite 

Roll with the punches…. stay with the fight 

And oh…….oh try to hold on…… 

To dreams of better days…….dreams of better days 

Dreams of better days to come………. 

Dreams of better days to come X2…. Of better days to come. 

 Chorus. 

I have to believe in tomorrow 

And hold up my end of the deal 

The world as we know it has turned on its head 

And there’s no going back, no going back,  

No going back to the old one…… 

Verse 4 

Paradise lost life on its knees 

Man we’re the culprits and greed’s the disease 

Tyrants tear up our prayers and decrees 

That oh…..oh help us hold on…. 

To dreams of better days…….dreams of better days 

Dreams of better days to come.           

                             Shackleton’s Farewell to the Endurance

Verse 1.

My faithful friend the time has come

This grumbling ice your funeral drum

You’ve laboured long and hard, beyond the call of duty…..

Now your shattered masts and spars

Lie glistening ‘neath the moon and stars

But these death-knell throes can’t hide or taint your beauty…

Hide or taint your beauty.

Verse 2.

I heard you cry again last night

Went to see you at first light

Like a wounded beast you lay, your big heart torn asunder

Fighting still with every breath

The ice now choking you and yet

In your pain I hear the words of no surrender…..

No surrender.

Chorus.

Endurance they named you well,

Enduring to the gates of hell

Through storm and swell never did you falter

Endurance it’s hurts to say

Farewell….but fate decides the day

Farewell, farewell, my friend

Farewell you gallant soldier

Verse 3.

Late November twenty first

Suddenly the ice floe burst

And in a moment you were gone with all colours flying

I watched the ensign disappear

An icy blast froze every tear

I shed for you my friend, so noble in your dying…..

Verse 4.

The ice floe’s on the move again

We must depart and say Amen

But sacredly within our hearts we’ll keep your name forever

And while we haul twixt tide and shore

We’ll sing about your deeds of yore

To keep our spirits high………

Chorus.

                                      The Verdant Braes of Skreen

Verse 1.

As I walked out one evening fair

By the verdant braes of Skreen

I set my back to a hawthorn tree

To view the sun in the west country

The dew on the forest green.

Verse 2.

A lad I spied by our burnside

And a maiden by his knee

He was dark as the berry brown red

And she all wae and worn to see

All wae and worn was she.

Verse 3.

“Oh sit ye down on the grass” he said

“On the dewy grass so green

For the wee birds all have come and gone

Since I my true love have seen

Since I’ve my true love seen”.

Verse 4.

“Oh I’ll not sit on the grass” she said

“Nor be a love of thine,

For I hear you love a Connacht maid

And your heart’s no longer mine” she said

“And your heart’s no longer mine”.

Verse 5.

“And I’ll not heed what an old man says

For his days are well nigh done

And I’ll not heed what a young man says

“He’s fair for many’s the one” she said

“He’s fair for many’s the one”.

Verse 6.

“But I will climb a high, high tree

And rob a wild bird’s nest

Back I’ll bring whatever I do find

To the arms that I love best” she said

“To the arms that I love best”

Addend

As I roved out one evening fair

By the verdant braes of Skreen.

                                                       Uncle John #2

Verse 1.

John was hard at work one day, when a long-time colleague turned to say

“Rumour has it that you and Joe have questions to answer?

I tell you this as a friend, these bloody rumours never end

For all I know it could be small town chatter”

Verse 2.

“Lucy Ryan, from near the Well, she’s in trouble bound for hell

That’s according to the God brigade, those preachers of mercy

Lately, the word got out that there’s not an honest man about,

And the story goes that one of you’s responsible?”

Verse 3.

“Thanks, I’ve heard that story too, and I know Lucy Ryan that’s true

But she told me long ago, I’d never be her fancy Dan

As for Joe, we’re close enough, we talk about all kinds of stuff

And I’ve no doubt he’d keep me in the picture?

Chorus.

T’was goodbye Dick, and goodbye Pat, and goodbye Kate and Mary

That holy Ireland’s dying fast, I’m glad to see her breathe her last

But still for those in trouble the judgement’s cold and tough

‘Cause it’s not dying, it’s not dying fast enough.

Verse 4.

They banished Lucy with her sin, sent her to the Magdelene

Sold her child to Americans for thirty bits of silver

The story hung like rancid air, drove John and Joe to dark despair

They tried to stay but rumour found them guilty.

Verse 5.

The lynch mob didn’t need a rope, to hang them ‘cause their distance spoke

A thousand words of shame and condemnation

In the end the silence ran two innocents to Daggenham,

Where they joined the rest of the discarded.

Verse 6.

And an honest man was never found, though many stories did the rounds

Lucy slaved her life away in the Magdelene Laundry

My grandmother prayed each night for John, and wondered why her only son

Chose to leave his fine job in the railway.

                  The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Verse 1.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early.

Verse 2.

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a good crew and captain well-seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ship’s bell rang
Could it be the north wind they’d been feeling?

Verse 3.

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too
T’was the witch of November come stealin’
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
While the gales of November kept slashing

By mid-afternoon it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind.

Verse 4.

About suppertime the old cook came on deck sayin’
“Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya”
At seven PM, a main hatchway caved in, he said
“Fellas, it’s been good to know ya”
The captain radioed he had water comin’ in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
Alas, later on, where the ships lights had gone
Lay the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Verse 5.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
If they’d put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up, they could have capsized
They might have broke deep and took water
But all that remains are the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Verse 6.

In Detroit they gathered to kneel and to pray
In the Maritime sailors’ cathedral
The church bell chimed, it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.

Before The Deluge

Verse 1.

Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature
While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts they turned to each other’s hearts for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge

Verse 2.

Some of them knew pleasure
Some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
On the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain
‘Til their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered
In the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
They traded love’s bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
In a moment they were swept before the deluge

Chorus.

Let the music keep our spirits high
Let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by, by and by
When the light that’s lost within us reaches the sky

Verse 3.

Some of them were angry
At the way the earth was abused
By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power
And in trying to protect her from them
Only became confused
By the magnitude of her fury in the final hour
When the sand was gone and the time arrived
In the naked dawn only a few survived
In attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge
They believed they were meant to live after the deluge.

Let the music keep our spirits high
Let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal it’s secrets by and by, by and by
When the light that’s lost within us reaches the sky

Let the music keep our spirits high
Let the buildings keep our children dry
In these troubled times…..In these troubled times

Let the music keep our spirits high………..

                                      Words and Music: Jackson Browne

                                                  Seanie Jackson

Verse 1.

I recall your crazy gait, your crazy hair, your coat unfurled

One step forward, two steps back, railing at your blasted world.

In asking your forgiveness now, I’m haunted by the thought

That I could be so spineless and so easily bought.

Chorus.                   

Forgive me Seanie Jackson, I never meant to be

Your taunter and tormentor, what put the hex on me?

To seek you out and find you, on my way from school

Forgive me Seanie Jackson, I never meant to be that cruel.

Verse 2.

We children are no innocents, from birth we seem to know the rules

Stumble and we’ll fall on you, with a will…. we have the tools.

Your mind a mess from God knows what, emboldened by the pack,

I found my own dagger and joined our crude attack.

Addend

I hope you found some peace somehow wherever you may be,

Forgive me Seanie Jackson…….This is my guilty plea.

I