Padraic Pearse Of New York Lyrics

Padraic Pearse Of New York lyrics

I was eighteen years old when I went down to Dublin

with a fistful of
money and a cartload of dreams.

"Take your time," said me father, "stop
rushing like hell

and remember all's not what it seems to be:

for
there's fellows would cut you for the coat on your back

or the watch that
you got from your mother,

so take care, me young bucko, and mind yourself
well,

and will you give this wee note to me brother?"



At the
time Uncle Benjy was a policeman in Brooklyn

and me father, the youngest,
looked after the farm,

when a phone call from America said send the lad
over

and the old fella said "Sure, it wouldn't do any harm:

for
I've spent my life working this dirty old ground

for a few pints of
porter and the smell of a pound.

And sure maybe there's something you
learn or you'll see

and you can bring it back home, make it easy on
me."



So I landed at Kennedy and a big yellow taxi

carried me
and me bags through the streets and the rain.

Well, me poor heart was
thumpin' around with excitement

and I hardly even heard what the driver
was saying.

We came in the Shore Parkway to the Flatlands in Brooklyn

to me uncle's apartment on East 53rd.

I was feeling so happy I was
humming a song,

and I sang 'You're as free as a bird.'



Well,
to shorten the story, what I found out that day

was that Benjy got shot
down in an uptown foray,

and while I was flying my way to New York

poor Benjy was lying in a cold city morgue.

Well I phoned up the old
fellow, told him the news.

I could tell he could hardly stand up in his
shoes,

and he wept as he told me: go ahead with the plan

and not to
forget be a proud Irish man.



So I went up to Nellie's beside
Fordham Road

and I started