Eerin Go Braghag by Cathal Coughlan
From the Cathal Coughlan’s 1996 Grand Necropolitan album. Written by Cathal Coughlan. No capo.
Where is the bonny boy and the innocence of this race?
[E] Over [G6] there, [E] near where the land of the [G6] free whites descends into Mexico. [E] Breathing car [G6] fumes and warm darkness. [E] On the [G6] balcony of a very cheap ho [E] tel [E] overlooking [G6] eight lanes of red and white [E] lights. [E] He was [G6] roused from his contemplation of the [E] cheap wine in his toothmug [G6] by the sound of laughter which [E] came from the TV, be [G6] hind him in his room.
He [Bm7] turned and saw the [D6] bashful and handsome face of a famous [F#m] Irish movie-star, [D6] struggling to seem a good sport on the [Bm7] midnight talkshow on NBC. [D6] Irish like [F#m] him, born on that last mean [D6] spit out of the gob of [E7] Europe, congealed on the brink of the Atlantic [G6] pit.
His wife had [E] marvelled at his Irishness – [G6] often, while it still seemed like an ex [E] otic perfume which she had [G6] brought back here from abroad, be [E] fore it became a stifling a [G6] roma to be dispelled. [E] Now he was just one more skill-free [G6] wetback with a liking for drink. [E] Alcohol doesn’t heal sadness, it just [G6] puts it out of focus.
[B] [F#] Eerin Go [B] Braghag
[F#] Beam me up, [B] grandad
[F#] Eerin Go [B] Braghag (You’ve been had, [F#] grave-bound and God-made mad
[E] Still, he had been [G6] lucky to get bail. The [E] credit card on which he’d had his little [G6] spree turned out to have been [E] property of a murder victim. [G6] Such were pit [E] falls; he’d led a sheltered life up to recent [G6] ly, yet here he was, [E] striving to compete locally with the baddest mother [G6] fuckers on Earth. Take his ex- [E] neighbour, who had sold him the [G6] card and had taken his place in jail.
[Bm7] He had claimed, variously, to be the [D] heir to a fortune, a co [Bm7] caine-baron and a police detective. [D] Who could tell what the truth was in [Bm7] such a place? Could the liars, [D] or could the decent people, like his wife’s [F#m] lover, whose guilt he had been able to milk [D] one last time for [E7] bail money?
[E] Well, he [G6] hated to let her down, but it was time to [E] leave. He had spent the [G6] last of his money on tonight’s fragrant [E] bed, and so there was no [G6] legal way out. He would cross the border on [E] foot, tomorrow. How [G6] difficult could it be? All the blue [E] eyes were on the desperate people coming the [G6] other way. He would slip [E] through and live on their abandoned goods. He [G6] was of peasant stock, after all.
[B] [F#] Eerin Go [B] Braghag
[F#] Beam me up, [B] grandad
[F#] Eerin Go [B] Braghag (You’ve been had, [F#] grave-bound and God-made mad
[E] The next day, [G6] shortly after sunrise, he was [E] sitting on a trolley-car bound for the border. [G6] Growing nervous, [E] he got off two stops early. [G6] Soon, he was crossing a [E] sleepy trailer park and entering a [G6] dense clump of tall and unfamiliar vege [E] tation. After [G6] he had walked some distance, the path [E] trailed off and he was lost. [G6]
And [G6] then he saw it.
[Bm7] It had the [D6] head of a pig, with [Bm7] clear green eyes and the [D6] body of a donkey. It [Bm7] spoke to him. “Don’t be a [D6] fraid,” it said. “I [F#m] mean you no harm.”
[D] [E7] It [E] went on to explain how [G6] it was the sole survivor of a [E] species whose existence has always been con [G6] cealed by science, [E] how it was in fear of its life from [G6] agents of the U.S. government, and [E] simply had to escape to [G6] Mexico. It would guide him there if [E] he would protect it. He a [G6] greed, unsteadily.
[E] And so it was that, at [G6] sunset on that day, having [E] crept for many hours through poor [G6] people’s dried-up yards, the [E] blind sides of factories and [G6] warehouses, they walked a [E] way from the paved road and into the [G6] desert, home only to wild, [E] alien, cold-blooded [G6] animals. The laughable [E] fluke of nature, soon to be ex [G6] tinct, and the [E] talking donkey with the [G6] head of a pig.
[B] [F#] Eerin Go [B] Braghag
[F#] Beam me up, [B] grandad
[F#] Eerin Go [B] Braghag (You’ve been had, [F#] grave-bound and God-made mad