Sinead O'connor - Famine Reynolds Extended Mix Lyrics
(o'connor, clayton, simenon, reynolds)[the extended version of "famine", released in 1995, from the cd-single "famine"]There is more in us than we know about. the famine, which happened 150 years ago.It’s three lifetimes at most. things that happen than were handed on from fatherTo son, from mother to daughter, down to this day. they are within us now, and weDon’t deal with them. and it seems to me, this is what’s interesting about a lotOf irish music now, that it is the carrier for this kind of feeling, and for thisKind of emotion, that we have no other expression for it because politically weDeny it, intellectually we deny it. our literature ....... doesn’t deal with this,Our sentiment doesn’t deal with this. but music, it’s in the music, it seems to me.The culture can actually carry those things in al kinds of visible ways, in gesture,In movement, in language, in humour and in music.Okay, i want to talk about irelandSpecifically i want to talk about the "famine"About the fact that there never really was oneThere was no "famine"See irish people were only allowed to eat potatoesAll of the other food, meat, fish, vegetables,Were shipped out of the country under armed guardTo england while the irish people starvedAnd then in the middle of all thisThey gave us money not to teach our children irishAnd so we lost our historyAnd this is what i think is still hurting meYou see we're like a child that's been batteredHas to drive itself out of it's head because it's frightenedStill feels all the painful feelingsBut they lose contact with the memoryAnd this leads to massive self-destructionAlcoholism, drug addictionAll desperate attempts at runningAnd in it's worst formBecomes actual killingAnd if there ever is gonna be healingThere has to be rememberingAnd then grievingSo that there then can be forgivingThere has to be knowledge and understandingAll the lonely peopleWhere do they all come fromAll the lonely peopleWhere do they all belongAn american army regulationSays you mustn't kill more than ten percent of a nation'cos to do so causes permanent "psychological damage"It's not permanent but they didn't know thatAnyway during the supposed "famine"We lost a lot more than 10% of our nationThrough deaths on land or on ships of emigrationBut what finally broke us is not starvationNo it's use in the controlling of our educationSchool go on about "black 47"On and on about "the terrible famine"But what they don't say is in truthThere really never was oneAll the lonely peopleWhere do they all come fromAll the lonely peopleWhere do they all belongSo let's take a look can weThe highest statistics of child abuse in the eecAnd we say we're a christian countryBut we've lost contact with our historySee we used to worship god as a motherWe're suffering from post traumatic stress disorderLook at all our old men in the pubsLook at all our young people on drugsWe used to worship god as a motherNow look at what we're doing to each otherWe've even made killers of ourselvesThe most child-like trusting people in the universeAnd this is what's wrong with usOur history books the parent figures lied to usI see the irishAs a race like a childThat got itself smashed in the faceAnd if there ever is gonna be healingThere has to be rememberingAnd then grievingSo that there then can be forgivingThere has to be knowledge and understandingAll the lonely peopleWhere do they all come fromAll the lonely peopleWhere do they all belongAll the lonely peopleWhere do they all come from(that i can tell you in one word)All the lonely peopleWhere do they all belongAnd if there ever is gonna be healingThere has to be rememberingAnd then grievingSo that there then can be forgivingThere has to be knowledge and understandingAnd if there ever is gonna be healingThere has to be rememberingAnd then grievingSo that there then can be forgivingThere has to be knowledge and understandingWe stand on the brink of a great achievementIn this ireland there is no solutionTo be found to our disagreementsBy shooting each otherBecause of our tradition everyone here knows who he isAnd what god expects him to doForgiveness, forgivenessKnowledgeYesAnd understandingForgivenessEquate, be drivenFrogivenessKnowledgeYesAnd understanding(repeat the above several times)
