Irish traditional song lyrics — collected by Beer Belly Band.
Me father rises early and he makes his cup of tay
He lights the kitchen stove and then he calls me
His days are often empty he’s nothing much to do
So he sits and tells me stories of the traveling life he knew
In the evening they will meet in lonely country lanes
A field away he’d hear a collie bark
And they’d pass the time away with talk about the days
Standing round the campfire in the dark
Standing round the campfire in the dark
Me mother likes the house the hot water and the rooms
It’s warm in the winter and she’s handy with the broom
Sometimes she makes colcannon more often brittle bread
There’s a hunger deep inside her for her traveling life that’s dead
In the evening she would lift the black pot from the coals
A bitter way she always would remark
There’d be vessels left to clean, while children could be seen
Playing round the campfire in the dark
Playing round the campfire in the dark
We go down to the pool halls to chat up the town whores
Sometimes at the discos we can’t get pass the doors
We’re still tinkers to them and it’s thrown at our ears
We’re still the awful strangers after all these years
And I think about my own life and the way it would be
An Escort van, a bit of dealing, a wife and a family
Now Thursday I collect the dole, Friday pitch and toss
Where on the sight I think about the traveler’s ways we lost
And I wish that I would rise and wash the sleep out of my eyes
And listen to the sweet song of the lark
And I wish that could be in the camp company
With the sound of horses moving in the dark
With the sound of horses moving in the dark
With the sound of horses moving in the dark