Bobby Sands

It's the same old dream
And it never changes.
We're back on the hillside,
Staring down at the farm.
I'll explain, he said,
I'll make no excuses.
I'll choose every word
With precision and care.
I'll try to avoid any misunderstanding,
Go back to the start, if I dare.

At 25 chance can make
you abandon,
All things familiar
All that you love.
Then one night
In a pub in North London,
I heard a girl singing
About a young Bobby Sands.

She sang with defiance
About his hunger strike.
She shed a tear for his courage,
For the loss of his youth .
Old stoics despair in
the face of sentiment
but I was just his age
Back in 1981.

And in 81
I still believed in sacrifice.
I hated indifference
And believed we should fight,
For that terrible beauty
In our legends and poetry,
For comrade and friend
To lay down your life.

I was 25 and chance
had me abandon
All things familiar,
All that I loved.
That night in O'Neill's
I'd had one too many
And her song had incited
A riot in me.

It was early in the morning
When we reached the place.
2 miles from the border,
South of Newry town.
We lay on the hillside,
Stared down at his house
Hens in the yard,
Just another whitewashed house.

When it was done
We hid our weapons,
A mile from the border
South of Newry town.
He had on his uniform,
Shaved and combed his hair.
Proud though fearful
Knowing why we were there.

I was 25 and consumed
with such anger.
You sit by your fireside,
Full of years, full og blame.
Bobby Sands died
Because nobody stopped him,
There was newsprint to sell
And elections to win.

It's the samme old song
The same old hatred.
You learn it at school
And around the kitchen table
Amid the clinking of glasses
You squander your days
On those same old songs
On that same old hatred.