Seventy Seven Years (Of Hell)
In 2001, David Ireland, who never recovered from the horror of the trenches, died, aged 103, after spending the last 77 years of his life in a psychiatric hospital. This song attempts to convey his story.
I joined the army in 1916
From my home town, Kircaldy in Fife
I joined the Highland Cyclists Battalion
Where they taught me to cycle for my life
Then they sent me to the trenches of France
Where I ran messages every day
Dodging the holes made by the shells
Carrying my bike part of the way
Chorus
Seventy seven years of hell
Seventy seven years of hell
Why oh why did I have to live so long
Through seventy seven years of hell
I was wounded by a bi-plane but they patched me up
And months later I was back to take some more
Then a sniper’s bullet hit me in the knee
And sent me reeling from the war
Although I had a limp I could do light work
As a gardener I thought I would be free
From the horrors of war but in 1924
Nightmare visions returned to haunt me
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I missed the roaring twenties, the great depression too
I missed skyscrapers climbing to the sky
I heard rumours that the Nazis were preparing for a war
A war where millions more would die
In the hospital I saw obscene images of war
As bullets buzzed like flies around my head
My bike wheels skidded in the mud as I took messages to men
Who when I reached them oftentimes were dead
chorus
The rest of the century slowly slipped on by
New wars with new technology
But the end is just the same and there will always be
Soldiers who are damaged just like me
For the mud of Arras is desperately cold
The dampness seeps right into your bones
I cowered in my foxhole as the years crept by
Praying for the day I would go home.
chorus