Irish traditional song lyrics — collected by Beer Belly Band.
Twas Joey the weasel that gave us the wire
We were closing our factory down
Though we didn’t believe and we called him a liar
The redundancy letters came round
As we read them in silence I choked back a tear
It was to believe after twenty odd years
Chorus:
Farewell my companions, me friends and me work mates
Farewell to the pay days, the pints and the crack
For we gave them our best years, now they’ve paid us back
By making us yesterday’s me, sure as hell, by making us yesterday’s men
So we said our goodbyes by the factory gate
One cold Friday evening last year
And I saw it all there in the eyes of me mates
The anger, the sadness, the fear
Like our fathers before us we worked there pride
Now we fought back the bitterness burning inside
Chorus
Now Jenny said she’d give the kids a few bob
After all sure it is Friday night
Ah how could I tell her I was out of the job
From now things were gonna be tight
How well I remember it cut like a knife
I was never a day on the dole in my life
Chorus
The machines now are silent, the work bench is bare
And there’s dust on the factory floor
They’ve boarded the windows and chained up the gate
And padlocked the factory door
Now I’m on the scrap heap and I’m thirty-nine
Just one of the hundreds shot down in me prime
Chorus
Chorus