Michael Conway - Solas

Oh me name is Michael Conway, in old Ireland I was born

Near the lake of Cloonacolly on a bright summer’s morn

But soon came cruel winter to break and scatter my poor home

Soon came the harsh day that forced me to roam

Well I reached bold Philadelphia in the brave land of the free

Where I met with my two brothers;

There was Pat, James, then me

We were destined for the rich land, fate owes us all from birth

We were bound for Butte, Montana, the richest hill on earth

Where their pockets they bulge heavy, when copper’s running high

Where the hill rewards her brave sons, it’s fortune or die

Where they tread on silver dollars on the crowded barroom floor

While they strip the granite mountain of her precious copper ore

Well we leaped down off that steam train, and stepped out into the yellow

Mist

With holes still in our hearts then, and a fight in either fist

No kind face to lead us up to where the dirty smelter spat

And it’s there I took to hard labor as a Butte mining rat

Where we trade the hours of daylight for the smell of copper ore

Where it’s whiskey and the cow pats to cure our copper sores

Where half the town it labors while the other half it sleeps

Where upon the granite mountain, a mile high and deep

Oh they know me down in Dogtown, bare knuckle I would go

For there’s not a man could best me while standing toe to toe

But I defied the crooked sheriff, for I wouldn’t throw his fight away

He should have laid it on at 5 to 2, and backed the bold Conway

I was lifted in Con Peoples, with the beer and music flowing free

Where my brothers had just left me, Oh bad fortune for me

Dragged out by crooked cowards, their batons knocked me off my feet

And they left me to die there, like a dog in the street

Far from the Anaconda, the mine with seven stacks

Far from the ashen faces of young men with crooked backs

Far from the granite mountain and the dusty grave in which I lie

My spirit chases starlings 'round a clear Mayo sky