Lyrics to
The Luck Of The Irish

Released by John Lennon in 1972
From the Album: Some Time In New York City |

This version of The Luck Of The Irish was released by John Lennon in 1972.

Our About John Lennon page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for The Luck Of The Irish from 1972 as well as all of the other lyrics from John Lennon that we have in our lyrics database.

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If you had the luck of the Irish
You’d be sorry and wish you were dead
You should have the luck of the Irish
And you’d wish you was English instead!

A thousand years of torture and hunger
Drove the people away from their land
A land full of beauty and wonder
Was raped by the British brigands! Goddamn! Goddamn!

If you could keep voices like flowers
There’d be shamrock all over the world
If you could drink dreams like Irish streams
Then the world would be high as the mountain of morn

In the ‘Pool they told us the story
How the English divided the land
Of the pain, the death and the glory
And the poets of auld Eireland

If we could make chains with the morning dew
The world would be like Galway Bay
Let’s walk over rainbows like leprechauns
The world would be one big Blarney stone

Why the hell are the English there anyway?
As they kill with God on their side
Blame it all on the kids the IRA
As the bastards commit genocide! Aye! Aye! Genocide!

If you had the luck of the Irish
You’d be sorry and wish you was dead
You should have the luck of the Irish
And you’d wish you was English instead!
Yes you’d wish you was English instead!


Want more lyrics and songs by John Lennon?

John Lennon has released many songs over the years besides The Luck Of The Irish. John Lennon released songs from 1970 to 1988 spanning across albums like John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band, Imagine, Some Time In New York City, Mind Games, Walls And Bridges, Rock 'N' Roll, Shaved Fish, Double Fantasy, Milk And Honey, Live In New York City, and Imagine: John Lennon. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by John Lennon.

If you're a fan of lyrics from 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1972 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and The Luck Of The Irish by John Lennon

The lyrics to The Luck Of The Irish are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that John Lennon used when the song was created in 1972. The lyrics to The Luck Of The Irish have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only John Lennon and any collaborators know all of the inspirations for the song.

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If you like etymology or breaking apart phrases and words, it is easy to understand the lyrics to The Luck Of The Irish by John Lennon. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to The Luck Of The Irish" means the words set to the music of The Luck Of The Irish, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by John Lennon. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to The Luck Of The Irish and the lyrics to The Luck Of The Irish are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of John Lennon who came here looking just for the lyrics to The Luck Of The Irish, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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