Come Out, Ye Black and Tans - Traditional Lyrics

Traditional Lyrics

I was born on a Dublin street where the Royal drums did beat,

And the loving English feet walked all over us;

And every single night, when me Da would come home tight,

He'd invite the neighbours outside with this chorus:

Oh, come out you Black and Tans;

Come out and fight me like a man;

Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders;

Tell her how the I.R.A. made you run like hell away

From the green and lovely lanes in Killeshandra.

Come, tell us how you slew

Them ol' 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.

Come, let us hear you tell

How you slandered great Parnell,

When you thought him well and truly persecuted,

Where are the sneers and jeers

That you bravely let us hear,

When our heroes of sixteen were executed.

The day is coming fast

And the time is here at last,

When each shoneen will be cast aside before us;

And, if there be a need,

Sure my kids will sing "Godspeed!",

With a bar or two of Stephen Behan's chorus.