Town I Loved So Well

back to songbook | text-only lyrics to this song

(C G F C F C) x2
G C - verse
F G C Am F D7 G
C G F C F C G C


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 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 trained the dogs
 And though times were tough 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 all could understand
I remember the day when I earned my first pay
And 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 armoured cars and the bombed out bars
and the gas that hangs on to every tree
 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 they carry on 
For their spirit's been bruised, never broken
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 

(Phil Coulter)


(A)
C G F C F C
C G F C F C G C

 (B)
 F G C Am F D7 G
 C G F C F C G C


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