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The Pogues named this song after a chapter in the Ulster cycle where the hero CuChulainn wounds a woman from the otherworld who was in the shape of a bird. She then lays a curse on him and he falls ill until he promises to aid those in battle who he had previously wronged. The song obviously doesn't draw much from the original story other than the title.
Sick Bed of Cuchulainn
by The Pogues
Intro
Mc Cormack and Richard Tauber
Are singing by the bed.
There’s a glass of punch be low your feet
And an angel at your head.
There’s devils on each side of you
With bottles in their hands.
You need one more drop of poison
And you’ll dream of foreign lands.
When you pissed yourself in Frankfurt
And got syph down in Co logne
And you heard the rattling death trains
As you lay there all alone,
Frank Ryan brought you whiskey
In a brothel in Madrid
And you decked some fucking blackshirt
Who was cursing all the Yids.
At the sick bed of Cu chulainn
We’ll kneel and say a prayer
And the ghosts are rattling at the door
And the devil’s in the chair.
And in the Euston Tavern
You screamed it was your shout
But they wouldn’t give you service
So you kicked the windows out.
They took you out in to the street
And kicked you in the brains,
So you walked back in through a bolted door
And did it all again.
At the sick bed of Cu chulainn
We’ll kneel and say a prayer
And the ghosts are rattling at the door
And the devil’s in the chair.
You re member that foul evening
When you heard the banshees howl,
There was lazy drunken bastards
Singing ‘Billy is in the bowl.’
They took you up to midnight mass
And left you in the lurch
So you dropped a button in the plate
And spewed up in the church.
Now you’ll sing a song of liberty
For blacks and paks and jocks
And they’ll take you from this dump you’re in
And stick you in a box.
Then they’ll take you to Clough prior
And shove you in the ground
But you’ll stick your head back out and shout,
“We’ll have another round.”
At the graveside of Cuchulainn
We’ll kneel around and pray
And God is in His heaven,
And Billy’s down by the bay.
Mc Cormack and Richard Tauber
Are singing by the bed.
There’s a glass of punch be low your feet
And an angel at your head.
There’s devils on each side of you
With bottles in their hands.
You need one more drop of poison
And you’ll dream of foreign lands.
When you pissed yourself in Frankfurt
And got syph down in Co logne
And you heard the rattling death trains
As you lay there all alone,
Frank Ryan brought you whiskey
In a brothel in Madrid
And you decked some fucking blackshirt
Who was cursing all the Yids.
At the sick bed of Cu chulainn
We’ll kneel and say a prayer
And the ghosts are rattling at the door
And the devil’s in the chair.
And in the Euston Tavern
You screamed it was your shout
But they wouldn’t give you service
So you kicked the windows out.
They took you out in to the street
And kicked you in the brains,
So you walked back in through a bolted door
And did it all again.
At the sick bed of Cu chulainn
We’ll kneel and say a prayer
And the ghosts are rattling at the door
And the devil’s in the chair.
You re member that foul evening
When you heard the banshees howl,
There was lazy drunken bastards
Singing ‘Billy is in the bowl.’
They took you up to midnight mass
And left you in the lurch
So you dropped a button in the plate
And spewed up in the church.
Now you’ll sing a song of liberty
For blacks and paks and jocks
And they’ll take you from this dump you’re in
And stick you in a box.
Then they’ll take you to Clough prior
And shove you in the ground
But you’ll stick your head back out and shout,
“We’ll have another round.”
At the graveside of Cuchulainn
We’ll kneel around and pray
And God is in His heaven,
And Billy’s down by the bay.