One, two, three
From this maze of alley-ways you can look up and see the green hills
Grey skies, dry stone walls, stretching all the way to the western islands
Where the rebels have the best songs
And you know them line by line
For to have a cause you need an enemy to hand
For all the flags and the banners
And the bullets and the bombs
For you know that the hillsides are inhabited by ghosts of martyrs that must be honoured
And here the clouds roll across the sun
So fast
And the whiskey is neat and thick on the tongue
Like blood
As each island is pulled away from one another
In the howling winds and stormy seas, if you have no clan then what are you
For this is how we dance and this is what we sing
And you can mock it all you like but it cannot be taken
For commemoration bonfires and screeching armoured cars
Driven by frightened men who never understand
What it's like to be in fields and put your hand into the sacred soil
And pull up stone after stone after stone
And here the clouds roll across the sun
So fast
And the whiskey is neat and thick on the tongue
Like blood
We shared that tiny place with the outhouse at the end of the yard
I had to share your taste in Russian music
I saw how you still carried your soldier's gait
And I knew that if it came to it, you'd know how to use it
So what did you know that fateful twenty-eighth of May
You said we shouldn't go to that place we always went to
Like an angel with steel wings and inside information
And I lived to tell the tale and I barely even asked the question
And the clouds still roll across the sun
So fast
And the whiskey is neat and thick on the tongue
Like blood
I put my arms around her waist and I felt such desire
But I really didn't know what I was getting myself into
For it's the women who carry the burdens and always know too much
And they get to read the signs and always clean the blood