Cancers That I've Had - lyrics

When he was just a baby, his mother sang him so,
“Don’t go to County Fallon to fight the English snow.
Your father was a martyr, for some greater good.
Don’t roll the dice or fight the gods of wood.”

Stories steeped in rusted time
are the bells about to chime.
People come and people pass
to better worlds of greener grass.

I’ve read your poems. They make me cry,
all the miseries and why.
Sadder still is what they save,
clever words tied to the grave.

His mother was a-sleeping when he grabbed his coat and gun,
and wrote for her a note to say the reasons why he’d gone.
The English killed his people. They raped and maimed his land.
For that they’d taste the musket in his hand.

All I ever do is sigh,
like a man about to die,
and drag these blues words to tone,
oh these soundtracks of alone.

All the songs I know are sad.
They are cancers that I’ve had.
Wrecks of trains and death abound
are inspiration for the sound.

It’s one shot for his father. And two shots for his Rose.
And three shots for the bullet that flies behind his nose.
And four shots for the blood, my friends.
And five shots for the cave his mother goes for flowers for his grave.