Come Out Ye Black and Tans
Written by Dominic Behan
Oh, come out ye black and tans,
come out and fight me like a man.
Show your wives how you won medals down in Flanders.
Tell them how the IRA made you run like hell away,
from the green and lovely lanes in Killashandra.
I was born on a Dublin street where the Royal drums do beat and
the loving English feet they tramped all over us.
And each and every night when me father'd come home tight,
he'd invite the neighbors outside with this chorus.
Come let me hear you tell, how you slammed the brave Pernell,
when you fought them well and truly persecuted.
Where are the smears and jeers, that you bravely let us hear,
when our heroes of sixteen were executed?
Come tell us how you slew, them poor Arabs two by two.
Like the Zulus they had spears and bows and arrows.
How you bravely faced each one, with your sixteen pounder gun
and you frightened them poor natives to their marrow.
The day is coming fast and the time is here at last,
when each yeoman will be cast aside before us.
And if there be a need, sure my kids will sing, "Godspeed!"
With a verse or two of Steven Behan's chorus.
