Well now this is from the Box "Look them straight in the eye and say
Pogue...Mahone".
The previously unreleased masterpiece NW3. No one knows
why it's never been recorded properly even though Pogues members themselves
say it's probably one of Shane MacGowans best songs.
The chords are from the much less sophisticated song "Mother Mo Chro", you
may have noticed it's the same melody.
I hear there also is another version with slightly different lyrics,
however this is the one with the lyrics from the more common version from
said CD-Box.
Capo 2
It was 1962
I was two years out of school
When I got on board a boat
that was bound for Liverpool
The day I went away
I remember it so well
Said goodbye to the North Wall
And bid a fond farewell
When I got down to the smoke
It was 1963
I got a job doing meals on wheels
Round NW3
I was terrorising grannies
For ten lousy bob a week
I was smashed and blacked
And drunk and young in NW3
In the filth and piss they lived in
They would sometimes hum an air
Or talk in tongues of madness
Keeping time upon the chair
And for their wrists a numbered tab
In Westminster morgue
On a cold hard slab
When I was still a young man
In NW3
Now spent of love and rage
I'm going home again
Never did nobody wrong
Never turned a decent wage
So thanks for sweet fuck all
once more back to the north wall
Said goodbye to all of that
And bid a fond farewell
At the top of the Pentonville Road
I watched the sun setting
The town spread out before me
Looked beautiful to me
Away from all the sighing
The suffering and the dying
I dreamed of the future
Of the young and the free
But the years they went by quickly
Now I swear I won't return here
Where each day just bring me closer
To the final misery
My kids will never scrape shit round here
And I won't die crying in a pint of beer
Or eat their stinking meals on wheels
In NW3.