A Ch F#m orus E :
E I Sing the song of the colony,
How many years and your still not free,
F#m And your mother cries,Oh and you ask God why.
E Greed is the knife, and the scars run deep,
How many races with much reason to weep,
F#m And your children cry, Oh and you ask God why.
Verse:
E Annie, she came from Dunlaven town,
The TB came, and killed her family all around,
F#m Population boomed, livin' in two rooms.
E Katie she came from down Townsend street,
Ten in her bed, and no shoes on their feet,
F#m 1916 came, they played the patriots game.
E Freddy, he came form the Iveagh flats,
Tenement slums and infested with rats,
F#m Sleepin on damp straw, tryin not to break the law.
E Thomas he came from Kilmainah Mayo,
Semi starvation was the only life you know,
F#m In a two room shack, then jailed in Letterfrack.
A Ch F#m orus E :
E I sing the song of the colony,
How many years and your still not free,
F#m And your mother cries, oh and you ask God why.
E Greed is the knife, and the scars run deep,
How many races with much reason to weep,
F#m And your children cry, oh and you ask God why.
Verse:
E I look to the east, I look to the west,
To the north and the south,
And im not too impresed.
F#m Time after time after crime after crime,
They rape, rob, pilage, enslaved, and murdered,
E Jesus Christ was their God,
And they done it in his name,
So he could take the blame if its not all a game,
F#m With Bible in one hand,and a sword in the other,
They came to purify my land, E
And my Gaelic Irish mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers
With our own anchient customs, laws, music, art,
F#m Way of life and culture
Tribal in structure, we had a civilisation,
When they were still neanderthal nations
E We suffer with the Native American,
The Indian in Asia,
Aboriginal Australia,
F#m The African people with their history so deep,
And our children still weep,
And our lives are still cheap,
E They came from Germany and France, from England and from Spain,
From Belgium and from Portugal,
You all done much the same,
F#m You took what was not yours,
Went against your own Bible,
You broke your own laws, just to outdo the rival
E But did you ever apologise,
For the hundreds of millions of lives,
Yous destroyed and terrorised, or have you never realised
F#m Did you never feel shame for what was done in your countrys name,
And find out whos to blame, and why it was so in-humane.
E And still they teach you in your school,
About those glorious days of rule,
And how its your destiny to be, superior to me,
F#m But if you've any kind of mind,
You'll see that all human kind
Are the children of this earth,
E An F#m d your hate for them will chew you up and spit you out!
A You'll never kill our will t F#m o be free, to E be free,
You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free,
You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free,
A InSide our minds, we all hold th F#m e key! E
A F#m E Till outro
Damien Dempsey
