The Dubliners - The Town I Loved So Well lyrics

In my memory I will always see the town that I have loved so well where our school played ball by the gasyard 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 have loved so well. In the early morning the shirt-factory horn called women from Craigeen the Moor and the Bog while the man on the dole played the mother's role fed the children and then trained 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 for the town I loved so well. There was music there in the Derry air like a language that we could all understand I remember the day when I earned my first pay as I played in the 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'd learned 'bout life and I've 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 armoured cars and the bombed-out bars and the gas that hangs on to every breeze. Now the army's installed by that old gasyard 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 I still carry on for their spirit's been bruised never broken they will not forget for their hearts are aset 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.