Description No Banshee
I paid my rent and tilled the earth
Claiming my birthright;
I dug in deep, and then it rose:
The sweet smell of the Blight.
Wife and daughter, strapping son,
I lost them, one, two, three;
Hungry screams to curdle blood ?
I need no banshee, need no banshee,
Need no banshee to call for me.
I took passage to New York,
Sailing steerage class.
Typhus took some where they slept,
Dark eyes glazed as glass,
And when we made our landfall,
Unmoved by bribe or plea
They left us to starve afloat ?
I need no banshee, need no banshee,
Need no banshee to call for me.
They call me Bogus American,
The Irish Frankenstein;
They gave me boots and uniform
But none of them are mine.
Confederate or Union man ?
Which one shall it be?
They?ll line me up and shoot me down ?
I need no banshee, need no banshee,
Need no banshee to call for me.
Lyric by Giles Watson, set to an adapted version of the traditional melody ?Bay of Biscay?. ?Bogus American? and ?Irish Frankenstein? are references to two racist cartoons which depicted ?the Irishman? as a simian monster. Many Irish immigrants fled the Famine of 1845-1852 in order to seek a better life in America, only to find themselves embroiled in the American Civil War a few years later. Enormous numbers died en route to America, either of starvation or typhus, and disease ridden ships were often quarantined when they arrived, resulting in further deaths.
