Karaoké Streets of New York The Wolfe Tones

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 rushin' like hell and remember all is 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 buck-o and mind yourself well and will you give this wee note to me brother

At the time uncle Benji 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 workin' this dirty old ground for a few pints of porter and the smell of a pound

And sure maybe there's somethin' you'll 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 pumpin' around with excitement and I hardly even heard what the driver was sayin'

We came in the short parkway to the flatlands in Brooklyn to my uncle's apartment on East Fifty-Third

I was feelin' so happy

I was hummin' 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 Benji got shot down in an uptown foray

And while I was flyin' my way to New York poor Benji was lyin' in a cold city morgue

Well I phoned up the old fella

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 Irishman

So I went up to Nelly's beside Fordham Road and I started to learn about liftin' the load

But the heaviest thing that I carried that year was the bitter-sweet thoughts of my hometown so dear

I went home that December 'cos the old fella died

Had to borrow the money from Phil on the side

And all the bright flowers and brass couldn't hide the poor wasted face of me father

I sold up the old farmyard for what it was worth and into my bag stuck a handful of earth

Then I boarded a train and I caught me a plane and I found myself back in the U.S. again

It's been twenty-two years since I've set foot in Dublin

Me kids know to use the correct knife and fork

But I'll never forget the green grass and the rivers as I keep law and order in the streets of New York

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