Black and Tans

notes:
historical: First, because I must remind you, please click here for my disclaimer.

Now. I read a lot about the Black and Tans during my British and Irish politics class. Here's the Local Ireland capsule of info on them.

"Formed [in 1920] to supplement the RIC, it recruited demobilised British soldiers to maintain operational strength, following widespread resignations and dismissals from the RIC. The name derived from the force's uniform which consisted of both army and police issue. The Black and Tans were given a free hand in their fight against the IRA and acted with extreme lawlessness. The fierceness of their reputation was based on their attacks on innocent civilians and major atrocities such as the burning of Cork City and Balbriggan, Co. Dublin, and Bloody Sunday at Croke Park in November 1921, when they shot into the crowd and killed eleven spectators and one player." By the way, that's not the same Bloody Sunday as the one you've heard of from U2 (and maybe Seanchai). That's yet another atrocity.

And Parnell (, Charles Stuart) was an Irish statesman/hero, to give you a brief intro. If you want to know more, click here for an encyclopaedia article on him.

CDs/MP3s: I don't think the Proddys ever recorded themselves performing this, but a lot of other people have versions of it. I think the Prodigals' version could kick anyone else's version in a fight. I'm so loyal. It's endearing, isn't it?
special Prodigals info: The words to this song are sort of loose anyway, and the way that Ray sings them, they're even looser. ~_^ He sometimes will sing a line from one verse and then a line from another.... We still love you, Ray.

Black and Tans
by Dominic Behan

Ray: "Now we're going to sing a bit of a rebel tune. Are you all ready for a rebel tune?"

1. I was born on Dublin streets
Where the loyalist drums did beat
And those bloody English boots trampled all over us,
And every single night
When me Da would come home tight
He'd call the neighbors out to sing this chorus:

Chorus:
Come out ye Black and Tans
Come out and fight me like a man,
Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders.
Tell her how the I.R.A.
Made you run like Hell away,
From the green and lovely fields of Killeshandra.

2. Tell her how you bravely slew
Them poor Arabs two by two.
Like the Zulus they had spears and bows and arrows.
Tell her how you faced down one
With your sixteen pounder gun
And frightened them poor natives to the marrow.

chorus

3. Come and let us hear you tell
How you slammed the great Parnell
When you thought him well and truly persecuted.
Where are those cheers and sneers
That you bravely let us hear
When our heroes of '16 were executed?

chorus

4. The day is coming fast
And the time is here at last,
When each yeoman will be cast aside before us,
And if there be a need
Sure my kids wil sing, "Godspeed!"
With a verse or two of Steven Beehan's chorus.

(I've heard other versions of that last verse, versions about a reunification of north and south.)

Guitar Chords:

I was [Am]born on Dublin streets
Where the [G]loyalist drums did beat
And those [Am]bloody English boots trampled all over us,
And [C]every single night
When me [G]Da would come home tight
He'd [Am] call the neighbors [G] out to sing this [Am-G-Am] chorus