Slainte Mhath

                                  A hand held over a candle in angst fuelled bravado

A carbon trail scores a moist stretched palm

Trapped in the indecision of another fine menu

And you sit there and ask me to tell you the story so far

This is the story so far

Shuffling your memories dealing your doodles in margins

You scrawl out your poems across a beermat or two

And when you declare the point of grave creation

They turn round and you to tell them the story so far

This is the story so far



And you listen with a tear in you eye

To their hopes and betrayals and your only reply

Is Slainte Mhath



Princes in exile raising the standard Drambuie

Parading their anecdotes tired from old campaigns

Holding their own last orders commanding attention

We sit here and listen to all of the story so far

This is the story so far



Take it away, take it away, take it away

Take me away, take me away, take me away



From the dream on the barbed wire at Flanders and Bilston Glen

From a Clydeside that rusts from the tears of its broken men

From the realisation that we've been left behind

Is to stand like our fathers before us in the firing line



Waiting on the whistle to blow

We stand here waiting on the whistle to blow

They promised us miracles, and the whistle still blows

Broken promises but the whistle still blows

Waiting on the whistle to blow

We stand here waiting on the whistle to blow