The Road

The sun so gently warmed the coarse skin of my cheek
before going down and dying behind the roofs of Baggot Street
We were playing an old song called “The Rare Old Mountain Dew”
A few quid in our case, good for some pints of plain
When on the Road I was dead beat, dirty and penniless
Sometimes I missed the warmth of home and sure my sweet colleen
but out there is where I have found an offbeat happiness
in the smile of a child or in a wise man’s clap

We had no cares, we had no ties and then nothing to lose
When rain fell down we took a break going drinking in the pubs
Our only shoes went worn out, our bones suffered the damp
Day by day we threw away the clothes pack’d in a bodhran bag
From County Clare to Sligo Bay we played almost everywhere
With singers, pipers, fiddlers we met along the way
We sat down in the Burren where horses graze beside the sea
I closed my eyes and then we sang a few songs to the wind

I woke up in my bed with a painful headache
I could no longer hear the whisper of the wind
A few childer were playing football out there in the street
I suddenly realized alas that I was back home
The walls looked at me as a stranger in their lands
I felt a sense of loneliness, so far from shamrock shore
She kept me hand and I tried to drive away the unhappiness
But holding down the head a tear felt on me bed