WILLIE MACBRIDE'S ANSWER TO FINBAR FUREY

Well, hello, Finbar Furey; this is Willie MacBride.
I can see you as you sit there down by my graveside,
And I loved your song about me that I'd like to put straight.
I was 40, not 19, as you sang in your song.
You subtracted the years on my gravestone all wrong,
And the way that I died it was foul and obscene.
You see, I choked on a chicken bone in the Army canteen.

CHORUS: They didn't beat the drum slowly; they didn't play the fifes lowly.
Didn't sound the Dead March as they lowered me down,
And me coffin was plywood and porous,
And the band was having a picnic in the forest.

Yes, I left both a wife and a sweetheart behind.
When the wife she found out, well, she near lost her mind.
Though I gave her of my best, I never treated her cheap,
But in her faithful heart I'll be forever a creep.
Ah, but now I'm a hero and your song was so kind.
I'm big, strong and handsome in everyone's mind,
But I'm scrawny and knock-kneed; I'd frighten the crows.
I'd a cauliflower ear and a wart on me nose. CHORUS

Well, now, Finbar Furey, I can't help wondering why
You sit talking to gravestone with a tear in your eye,
And sure, look at you now; you've had such an attack,
I bet this is the first grave that's answered you back.
You're as white as a sheet and you're shaking and sick.
Do you know something, Finbar? You're as thick as a brick.
This is not the voice of a spirit long lost;
It's your ol' brother Eddie; I'm behind a white cross. CHORUS


I'm confused; you'd think Finbar wrote the song and not Bogle. Barry