THE SICK BED OF CUCHULAINN
McCormat and Richard Tauber are singing by the bed.
There's a glass of punch below your feet and an angel at your head.
There's devils on each side of you with bottles in their hands.
When you pissed yourself in Frankfurt and got syph down in Cologne.
And you heard the rattling death trains as you lay there all alone.
Frank Ryan bought you whiskey in a brothel in Madrid.
And you decked some fucking blackshirt who was cursingall the Yids.
At the sick bed of Cuchulainn we'll kneel and say a prayer.
and the ghosts are rattling at the door and the devils in the chair.
And in the Euston Tavern you screamed it was your shout.
But they wouldn't give you service so you kicked the windows out.
they took you out into the street and kicked you in the brains.
So you walk back in through a bolted door and did it all again.
At the sick bed of Cuchulainn we'll kneel and say a prayer.
and the ghosts are rattling at the door and the devils in the chair.
You remember that foul evening when you heard the banshees howl.
There was lousy drunken bastards singin Billy in the bowl.
They took you up to midnight mass and left you in the lurch.
So you dropped a button on the plate and spewed up in the church.
Now you'll sing a song of liberty for blacks and paks and jocks.
And they'll take you from this place you're in and stick you in a box.
Then they'll take you to Cloughprior and shove you in the ground.
But you'll stick your head back and shout we'll have another round.
At the graveside of Cuchulainn we'll kneel around and pray.
And God is in heaven, and Billy's down the bay.
