NINETEEN NINETY NINE
(Tommy Sands)

Oh IRA and UVF this song is just for you
As you sit down at the table now to see what you can do
At last you've come together after all the tears and time
It's sad you didn't do it back in 1969

History calls you savages but I know that isn't true
For we grew up together and I am part of you
We all had dreams and hopes and fears and someone else to blame
It took so long to realise our dreams were all the same

You know our dreams were all the same
But who would dare proclaim
In the anger and the pain
Our dreams were all the same

We felt the taste of hunger when the factory went away
And then they closed the hospital they said it didn't pay
And as the rich got richer and they promised us the sky
All we got were promises and coloured flags to fly

I remember well your little girl she had ribbons in her hair
When she came to play that summer's day with the children in the square
To think they could be here today still laughing and alive
If strong men had been wise men in 1979

You know our dreams were all the same
But who would dare proclaim
In the anger and the pain
Our dreams were all the same

It was always all or nothing there was nothing in between
Compromise was treachery that's the way it seemed
Well now we're left with nothing but a future we must find
And count the cost of the chances lost in 1989

Oh IRA and UVF this song is just for you
As you sit down at the table now to see what you can do
At last you've come together after all the tears and time
It's sad you didn't do it back in 1999

You know our dreams were all the same
But who would dare proclaim
In the anger and the pain
Our dreams were all the same

[1989:] During the course of the same week recently, I found myself in the headquarters of representatives of the two opposing lines in the Northern troubles. But when I looked out of the window of each place I saw the same picture. The houses were the same, the people wore the same and the problems were the same. At that moment I knew that eventually both sides would sit down and find a solution. The song asks the question ... When? (Notes Tommy Sands, 'Beyond the Shadows')

[1996:] At around the same time as the events in "There were Roses" were occurring [in 1974], the Protestant-backed Ulster Defense Association invited Tommy to tour an installation, and he was surprised by what he found. "I saw a book on Gandhi, and I saw Celtic pictures on the wall...I felt part of them," he says. Later the same week, he found himself the headquarters of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing, and the similarities were plain to him. "Going through the door, the locks were the same. The chains were the same.

Looking through the windows and seeing the same pictures was the thing that really impressed me. Same houses, same unemployment, the same people wearing the same clothes, the same sense of depression. At that moment, I knew the people are together. It's a matter of recognizing it. And the question I ask is when we will recognize it." (Sing Out! Magazine, vol 36 #3, Nov/Dec 1991, updated Jan 1996)