Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From:
Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Nov 12 - 06:59 AM
Cat among the pigeons
A song about a song rather than a war
Jim Carroll
Willie Macbride You Bastard You
Crawford Howard (adapted by Fintan Vallely
Oh, youse know that big long song about Willie MacBride,
Well, to tell yis the god's truth, it turns me inside,
You'll hear it on the Shankhill, you'll hear't on the Falls,
And mostly from people who can't sing at all,
You go out to the pub on a Saturday night,
For a pint and the crack, a-and things are all right
'Till some boy with his shirt out
Slumps down by your side —and says:
"Zing-zzz z'wunn zbouzz Wllee Mmm-Bride,"
Ah, you say you don't know it (but this will not do)
For his plan all along has been to sing it to you.
He knocks over your drink, and takes off in a key
That wasn't constructed for Pava-Rotti;
And with the lines grinding on, Oh, the horror gets worse,
As it slowly sinks in—that he knows every verse.
With his arm round your shoulder, by now he's your friend—and
He's determined to sing this damn thing to the end.
CHORUS:
Did he sing the song badly?
Did they gulp their pints madly?
Did we all fall asleep before we'd finished our round?
Did the barstaff cry, "Last drinks" to stir us?
Did the punters cry, "Thank God it's o-o-o-ver"?
You slip out to the jacks for a quart'r of an hour,
Kill time at the TV set out in the Bar,
And then you sneak back thinking he might have tired,
But he's still choking on gas, tangled up in barbed wire;
And for ten minutes more he continues this rant
Again, and again, and again till you can't
Care that he's up to his oxters in gutters in trench—es, or give
Two tupp'ny damns where the red poppies dance.
CHORUS
Oh, Willie MacBride why the hell did you die?
The trouble you'd have saved if you'd come back alive.
If you'd got a good job, or signed on the b'roo—
We wouldn't have to endure this ould mush about you.
Aye but maybe it's better for you that you're dead
With the green fields of France piled up over your head;
For the trouble you've caused us since that day you died,
Oh, rusty shrapnel's too good for you, Willie MacBride.
CHORUS
And you—Eric Bogle, just what was your game?
White crosses mark out the road to your fame.
Could you not guess the Fureys might drive us insane?
Can you not call them off?—Jasus, we're not to blame!
And why d'you complain about shellfire and smoke?
Sure with PA and cig'rettes, the pubs are no joke.
Where we drink to his mem'ry each weekend we're broke
Makin' Willie Mac Bride's fans consumptive ould soaks.
CHORUS
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