Manslaughter Ballad. Lyrics by Danny McElhinney
C
I lost my best years in a bar fight a lifetime ago
F
Why I said what I said, I still don’t recall
C
After too many whiskies, we took it to the street
F
Pushing and shoving and bearing our teeth
C
I caught you with a dog shot and you’d slipped and fell
F
Like a coward I followed through, now I rot in a cell
G
And nothing I did before mattered a damn.
F
No mitigating factors when the jail doors slammed
C
It’s still haunting me, haunting me, haunting me
F
You are still taunting me, taunting me, taunting me
G
And it still tortures me, tortures me, tortures me
F C F
That night still haunting me, haunting me, haunting me-e-e-e-e
C
With the peel of eight bells the bedlam began
F
Two brothers on D Wing, they’d hatched a plan
C
Smashed the overhead tv with a 14 pool ball
F
Then felt the screws’ batons, backs to the wall
C
But two kitchen orderlies opened a flank
F
Took another screw hostage with a sharpened up shank
G
But he struggled too much got chibbed in the neck
F
Then he slid down me and fell to the deck
C
It’s still haunting me, haunting me, haunting me
F
You are still taunting me, taunting me, taunting me
G
And it still tortures me, tortures me, tortures me
F C F
That night is still haunting me, haunting me, haunting me-e-e-e-e

C
We got to the roof.
F
We lasted two days
C
They hosed us then rushed us
F
and dragged me away
C
I got 20 more years for killing the screw
F
His name was John Parkin, he said he knew you
C
Big John was complicit, played his part to a tee
F
But I panicked with the blade, thought he turned on me
C
And I think back to the bar fight. Me and my big mouth
F
It was me that collected you the day you got out.
C
I’ve been 38 years at the pleasure of the state
F
Talk of parole now but it’s much too late
G
Scarred and institutionalized my mind is unsound
F
The only one I cared about I put in the ground
C
It’s still haunting me, haunting me, haunting me
F
You are still taunting me, taunting me, taunting me
G
And it still tortures me, tortures me, tortures me
F C F finish on C
That night still haunting me, haunting me, haunting me-e-e-e-e