I was born on a Dublin street where the Royal drums do beat
And the loving English feet they tramped all over us,
And every night when me father’d come home tight
He’d invite the neighbors outside with this chorus:
Oh, come out you 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.
Come let me hear you tell
How you slammed the great 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.
Oh, come out you black and tans…
Allen, Larkin, and O’Brien–
How you bravely called them swine!
Robert Emmett who you hung and drew and quartered!
High upon that scaffold high,
How you murdered Henry Joy!
And our Croppy Boys from Wexford you did slaughter!
Oh, come out you black and tans…
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 wil sing, “Godspeed!”
With a verse or two of Steven Beehan’s chorus.
