My Youngest Son Came Home Today

(album: Collected - 1984)

My youngest son came home today
His friends marched with him all the way
The pipes and drum beat out the time
While in his box of polished pine
Like dead meat on a butcher's tray
My youngest son came home today

My youngest son was a fine young man
With a wife, a daughter and two sons
A man he would have lived and died
Till by a bullet sanctified
Now he's a saint or so they say
They brought their young saint home today

Above the narrow Belfast streets
An Irish sky looks down and weeps
At children's blood in gutters spilled
In dreams of freedom unfulfilled
As part of freedom's price to pay
My youngest son came home today

My youngest son came home today
His friends marched with him all the way
The pipe and drum beat out the time
While in his box of polished pine
Like dead meat on a butcher's tray
My youngest son came home today
And this time he's home to stay