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 smell.
Going home in the rain running up the dark lane
Past the jail and down beside the fountain
Those were happy days in so many many ways
In the town I loved so well.

In the early morn the shirt factory horn
Called women from Creggan, the Moor and the Bog
While the men on the dole played a mothers role
Fed the children and then trained the dog
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 could all understand
I remember the day when I earned my first pay
as I played in a small pickup 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 about life and I'd found a wife
In the town I loved so well.

But when I returned how my eyes were burned
To see how a town could be brought to it's 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 guns
Oh my God, what have they done
To the town I loved so well.



(Contributed by Shay Griffits - October 2003)