Vidéo : « Farewell to Erin »

Written and composed by Daniel Whelan
Recorded and directed by Lorenzo Papace
Mastered by Cian Hamilton
Hurdy Gurdy played by Lucie Laigle
Makeup by Indira Gruninger

« Third video in a series of four in and around Lyon, France. We filmed this video outside a church in Saint Just which has an imposing stained window looking over a small square, and also at Espace BOB, a centre and space for various types of artists. I’m joined by Lucie Laigle on Hurdy Gurdy (vielle à roue) who helps greatly intensify the colour of the images in the video, and of the lyrics in the song. » — Daniel Whelan

Lyrics

Farewell to Erin.
Why am I afraid of you?
Is it the lotus in the milk you drink
Or the fly that mars your truth?

Charles Stewart Parnell
Is spread eagle on a couch.
A British flag draped across his shoulders
With kisses from Rome upon his mouth.

And I say

Farewell to Erin.
I’m passing out
On the fumes of my folk guitar
And the puritanically devout.

James Augustine Joyce
Is hanging upside down.
Nails are hammered through his hands and feet
With not a lick of skin left upon his crown.

And he says

“The times they are a changing”
There’s only so much Brendan Behan that a boy can take.
There’s only so much Dublin, Dublin, Dublin,
Before the poetry breaks.

The myth keeps getting bigger.
Temple bar with its dirty fingers.
St. James holds the keys to heaven
And he’s placed his bets against the resurrection.

Farewell to Mary, Joseph’s midnight wife,
I’m glad I wasn’t in your shoes.
But did the virgin at Granard speak
While your belly it was bursting with Hibernian blues?

The veil is getting thin.
Am I the only one who loves our sin?
There’s a twinkle in my eye
And that’s the lie.

Farewell to Paddy Christ
Devil Eire really twisted thee.
He sent your brothers off to kingdom come
While he beat you with his belt on his Catholic knee.

Where’s that leave us then?
Without our men of cloth and silk and porter pen?
The west it beckoned when?
I guess they always knew we were in need of a friend.

A nation’s made for sharing
He said as he raised his dress
To a chorus of some Silicon Valley boys
Drinking Starbucks in their H&M.

A nation once again.
Signed upon the line with a digital pen.
We’ve bought and sold so many times
I can’t say what’s your or what is mine.

Farewell to my flesh and blood
Don’t think that I don’t love you.