The Town I Loved So Well

In my memory I will always see the town that I have loved so well Where our school played ball by the gas yard wall and we laughed through the smoke and the smell Going home in the rain, running up the dark lane past the jail and down behind the fountain Those were happy days in so many, many ways in the town I loved so well In the early morning the shirt factory horn called women from Creggan, the Moor and the Bog While the men on the dole played a mother's role, fed the children and then walked the dogs And when times got rough there was just about enough But they saw it through without complaining For deep inside was a burning pride in the town I loved so well There was music there in the Derry air like a language that we could all could understand I remember the day when I earned my first pay As I played in a small pick-up band There I spent my youth and to tell you the truth I was sad to leave it all behind me For I learned about life and I'd found a wife in the town I loved so well But when I returned how my eyes have burned to see how a town could be brought to its knees By the armored cars and the bombed out bars and the gas that hangs on to every tree Now the army's installed by that old gas yard wall and the damned barbed wire gets higher and higher With their tanks and their guns, oh my God, what have they done? to the town I loved so well Now the music's gone but they carry on For their spirit's been bruised, never broken They will not forget but their hearts are set on tomorrow and peace once again For what's done is done and what's won is won and what's lost is lost and gone forever I can only pray for a bright, brand new day in the town I loved so well