Lyr Add: Belfast Town (and help req)

Subject: LyrADD/Help request: Belfast Town
From: AndreasW
Date: 13 Oct 98 - 02:20 AM

Dear Fellow Mudcats/MudTomcats/Mudkittens...

As I did not find this song in the database, I want to add it.
But there is one word I can't understand although I listened to the song many times.
It is marked bold, see below. I wrote the word as I understand it,
but I can't find it or anything similar in any dictionary.
Can anyone help?
Another question: does anyone know what the acronym "CS" stands for?
I know it is some kind of tear gas, but not what the CS stands for
My guess is something like chloride/sulphur.

The song is sung by Mick Moloney on the 4CD-Collection
"Irish Folk Favourites"

cu,Andreas

Belfast Town

We've barricades and gelignite and gunmen walk the streets
We've CS gas imported for the hungry kids to eat
Our towns and knells are a castle now and the waves begin to pound
And I'll tell you, John, I've oft time longed to leave old Belfast town.

Oh Belfast is a city where decent men are few
Where drums and guns have mesmerized the working man, it's true
Where democracy means impocracy (???) and corruption does abound.
And I'll tell you, John, I've oft time longed to leave old Belfast town.

For long we've been exploited and I have asked why
That men without compunction were allowed to bleed us dry
In many a filthy tenement in districts fallen down
And I'll tell you, John, I've oft time longed to leave old Belfast town.

Our minds are filled with poison and I fear it is too late
To wipe our walls of malice and the words that speak of hate
For freedom has been banished now and honest men put down
And I'll tell you, John, I've oft time longed to leave old Belfast town.

Oh well now, John, you've been and gone around the world to see
And have you found a country where the working man is free
Where there are no grasping landlords nor forces of the crown
Ah, tell me, John, and I'll be gone far from old Belfast town.

Subject: RE: LyrADD/Help request: Belfast Town
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Oct 98 - 02:38 AM

Well, Andreas, CS is a type of tear gas (ortho-Chlorobenzalmalononitrile)used in riot control. Click here to find out more than you'd ever want to know about it.
In the previous thread on this song (click here), Wolfgang transcribed the questionable word as "hypocracy," which may or may not be a correct spelling elsewhere for what we in the U.S. spell "hypocrisy."
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: LyrADD/Help request: Belfast Town
From: Wolfgang Hell
Date: 13 Oct 98 - 02:56 AM

Andreas, it takes some time before a song finds its way from the Forum to the database. I posted this song more than one year ago in a thread called Belfast Town . A good song, isn't it? I know it from a record called We have met together featuring among other Mick Moloney. The word you are looking for is I think hypocrisy.

Cheers Wolfgang

Subject: RE: LyrADD/Help request: Belfast Town
From: AndreasW
Date: 13 Oct 98 - 04:37 AM

Thanks Joe and Wolfgang, for your fast answers!
Sometimes I just search the database and forget to search the forum.
Probably because I am getting older and older ...

cu, Andreas

Subject: RE: LyrADD/Help request: Belfast Town
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Oct 98 - 02:46 PM

Andreas, I think you're right in the first line with gelignite, although it may be pronounced the way Wolfgang has it.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: LyrADD/Help request: Belfast Town
From: AndreasW
Date: 14 Oct 98 - 07:20 AM

Hi Joe,

I wrote it as gelignite, because I know the German name Gelignit,
and now I looked up both gelignite and jellygnite in Hypertext Webster.

Results for gelignite:
a type of dynamite in which the nitroglycerin is absorbed in a base of wood pulp
and sodium or potassium nitrate

Results for jellygnite:
No definition found for "jellygnite"

so that seems to be in my favour.
And I think I remember something like it coming from
"gelum" (Latin for jelly) and "ignitium", the ignition,
or burning jelly, but I'm not sure about that.

cu, Andreas

Subject: RE: LyrADD/Help request: Belfast Town
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Oct 98 - 03:52 PM

Hi, Andreas - discussing English with Ausländer often helps me learn my own language. Webster's New World Dictionary says gelignite is pronounced JEL-ig-nite or je-LIG-nite with the accent on the capitalized syllable. I would have thought it would have been pronounced with a hard "G" as in "go," but the dictionary says I was mistaken. The definition says it's a mixture of mixture of nitroglycerin, nitrocellulose, and other nasty things, and that it's also called gelatin dynamite. Now we know. Your transcription is correct, and my pronunciation has been corrected - thanks to you.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Belfast Town (and help req)
From: GUEST,Jim Fitz
Date: 06 Feb 16 - 02:57 PM

It s a nice song except it is quite damning about Belfast people who lack decency! as the lyrics say. I don't think Mick has spent much time rubbing shoulders with us folk from Belfast.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Belfast Town (and help req)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 06 Feb 16 - 03:45 PM

[1977]
Album "England's Vietnam - Irish Songs of Resistance", Folkways Records
Scritta da Barney McIlvogue

http://www.antiwarsongs.org/canzone.php?id=26053&lang=en

Good discussion of the song at that site.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Belfast Town (and help req)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 06 Feb 16 - 04:00 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2c9LRst7BY

Here's a take I like very much.