The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #166007 Message #3988426
Posted By: Stewie
20-Apr-19 - 09:34 PM
Thread Name: Lyr ADD: Follow The Flag by Mickey MacConnell
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Follow The Flag by Mickey MacConnell
Hi Bonnie, I've had a go at transcribing it from Mickey's recording.
FOLLOW THE FLAG (Mickey MacConnell)
The lad was fourteen when his daddy came home Eyes blackened, his fists cut and bleeding’ ‘If you follow the flag, son’, his daddy said then ‘There’s no small loss of blood you’ll be heeding’ There are guns in the night soon and bombs in the dawn His whole small terraced world was aflame Wide awake in his bed, blankets over his head He learned ‘follow the flag’ was the game
He had just turned eighteen came a knock on the door And the lads there they asked him to join To follow his father and grandad before All his folks since the days of the Boyne And his knuckles were white, his eyes glittering and bright As he tied the old oath to new name For he knew what to do and what must be done true When ‘follow the flag’ was the game
But which flag did he follow, was it green, white and gold Or was it the red, white and blue The harp or the lily, King James or King Billy That’s the riddle I’m leaving with you
At age twenty-one, he slept with a gun And he’d sent many men to their tombs There was ice in his eyes, there was blood on his hands His mere whisper could seal a man’s doom And he led men much older because he was bolder From his comrades he won great acclaim A price on his head either living or dead Proved that ‘follow the flag’ was his game
At age twenty-six on a dark Belfast street His wrong place and wrong time intersected As the black cab slipped by, he knew he would die For one moment of caution neglected As the guns took his life, their orange tongues framed in white He wondered who was to blame So swiftly he died, that night hardened men cried And ‘follow the flag’ was no game
Which flag did he fall for, was it green, white and gold Or was it the red, white and blue The harp or the lily, King James or King Billy That’s the riddle I’m leaving with you
They buried him proudly, the flag o’er his grave From his leaders a stirring oration Oh he died for his country, that’s what they all said Rearranging six feet of his nation And the flag neatly folded to his mother it went In an ending that’s always the same Young warriors are sleeping, old mothers are weeping When ‘follow the flag’ is the game
But which flag did she weep o’er, was it green, white and gold Or was it the red, white and blue The harp or the lily, King James or King Billy That’s the riddle I’m leaving with you
Wrap the green flag round me boys To die is far more sweet When we fought for the glorious King William On the green mossy slopes of the Boyne