The Town I Loved So Well - Phil Coulter

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 when times got 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

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