As I roved down by Carlisle Circus a fire was in my head,
And I didn’t know if it was the drink I’d drunk or the week of tea instead, aye-oh, or the weak auld tea instead.

For the girls were pushin’ prams with kids and they were gurnin’ my self same tears,
And those kids looked back with clever stares and I knew well what they said, aye-oh, I knew well what they said.

And I fell in to the City Bar with its speakers blurtin’ songs,
Of the great things we had won these years and the Bright Star of the West, aye-oh, the Bright Star of the West.

And I met a man who’d won the war and lost the will to win,
And I hugged him as we saw the past through the dregs where the next one begins, aye-oh, through the dregs where the next ones begin.

And we limped on up the Ormeau Road to a bar where peace broke out,
And we fought like hell over sweet fuck all til the mad cunt started to shout ‘aye-oh!’ and got us both fucked out.

And we hit the streets all painted in their colours strong and true,
And the peelers’ tanks were whitewash white and our cans were red and blue, aye-oh, our cans were red on blue.

He says to me he dreamt one time of a Palace on a Hill,
Where there was no King nor Philistine to rob you of your will, aye-oh, of your only solemn will.

And we sank the cans and raised them high in praise of hope and folly,
And we were the kings of every hill that bleeds from a back alley, aye-oh, that runs from a back alley.

And the sky was trapped between two walls as we looked up through our hands,
And our fingers were like prison bars in that glorious wasteland, aye-oh, we were lost on rough wasteland.

I says to him “put on your boots, I’m gettin’ us both confessed”, but the confidential telephone would’nt listen to the blessed, aye-oh, we were full as Popes and blessed.

He says we should go across the town to the shebeen below the mount,
So we hopped a cab and sped away and rolled into that joint, aye-oh, it was a low and smokey joint.

He took a stool, I missed the floor, my soul was all adroop,
Til I met a girl with rebel hands who fed me mushroom soup, aye-oh, with her mushrooms all in a soup.

I barred my head out of that place, that woman freed my hands, and we took to the hill in search of love and the Golden Bobby Sands, aye-oh, our love was golden sands.

The hill was black and dark as hell and the hungry trees were flutes,
That whistled the wind of Evermore to the beer cans underfoot, aye-oh, there were good times underfoot.

I kissed that girl and she kissed me and the sky was slick with paint,
And we made love on a gable wall that was laid low as a Saint, aye-oh, we were patrons to a Saint.

And as we lay there cold and bright and feeling hurt and blessed,
We found the prayer on a pair of lips to the Bright Star of the West, aye-oh, we sang The Bright Star of the West.

So come all ye clowns and stallagnites that would free auld Ire-er-land,
You won’t free shite of a Friday night without stardust on your palms, aye-oh, she keeps stardust in her palms.