Rebels

Mangan poured the whiskey

MacGowan held my legs

Behan laughed and poured another,

I laughed and poured it down!

It was a night like any other

The whiskey did a job on me.

Where’s me whiskey for the night?

Where’s me whiskey to keep it right?

Drunk to hell I tried to rise.

But MacGowan still held my legs.

Oh the whiskey did a job on me.

Where’s me whiskey for the night?

I looked around for all I could see

but the whiskey hung onto me.

So where’s me whiskey where’s me whiskey

Give me more before I kick in your door.

Hemmingway sat in me corner.

Laughing through a grizzly beard.

Shotgun sitting upon his lap,

I raised me glass and toasted him.

MacGowan growled me a song,

stories of drunken rebels.

Fighting for a mighty cause

Freedom for Ireland for all to see.

Suddenly all was clarity

As I remembered my Irish ancestry.

Accross the sea in a heaving boat.

Escaping hunger and darkened skies.

Fleeing poteen and poverty.

Escaping the Black and Tans

Murderous thieving, raping bastards.

Sometimes the lads shot them down.

Leaving poteen and freezing beds

They came here to lay their heads.

I don’t know what they went through?

“No dogs”, “No Irish”, No Blacks”.

But I’m laying here today with me whiskey

and I’ve got me flat to call me own.

And a key to me door as I crawl across the floor.

And the English still fuck me over.

From lofty chairs even though they call me their own.

So I’m still a proud rebel at heart all for the good.

As  I imagine fat bastards in parliament swimming in their blood.