Great Music Monday-Ireland

I'm posting this a couple hours before Monday, but I don't know what tomorrow will bring other than being busy as hell.

So to continue with the Irish music leading up to the high holy day, I picked a song that most would not actually think of when thinking about Irish music. In fact, the artist is best known as one of the best country music entertainers and is the biggest selling solo artist in U.S. music history.

Garth Brooks.

On his 1995 album (holy hell, it's been 14 years? Damn, I'm getting really old.) "Fresh Horses," which produced two number 1 singles (She's Every Woman, Beaches of Cheyenne), but it wasthe last track on the album which was simply titled "Ireland" that really spoke to me in a way other songs didn't. It was never released as a single, never played on the radio, but I wanted to hear this one song as often as possible.

It may be a major part of what led me to Celtic Music.

The song was written by Garth Brooks (useless piece of trivia I know, his real name is Troyal Garth Brooks), Stephanie Davis, and Jenny Yates. I haven't been able to find out what the story behind the song is but the lyrics are very much Irish in spirit. The spirit of rebellion against insurmountable odds.

They say mother earth is breathing
With each wave that finds the shore
Her soul rises in the evening
For to open twilight's door
Her eyes are the stars in heaven
Watching o'er us all the while
And her heart it is in Ireland
Deep within the Emerald Isle.

We are forty against hundreds
In someone else's bloody war
We know not why we're fighting
Or what we're dying for
They will storm us in the morning
When the sunlight turns to sky
Death is waiting for its dance now
Fate has sentenced us to die.

(chorus)
Ireland I am coming home
I can see your rolling fields of green
And fences made of stone.
I am reaching out won't you take my hand
I'm coming home Ireland.

Oh the captain he lay bleeding
I can hear him calling me
"These men are yours now for the leading
Show them to their destiny "
And as I look up all around me
I see the ragged tired and torn
I tell them to make ready
'Cause we're not waiting for the morn.

Ireland I am coming home
I can see your rolling fields of green
And fences made of stone.
I am reaching out won't you take my hand
I'm coming home Ireland.

Now the fog is deep and heavy
As we forge the dark and fear
We can hear their horses breathing
As in silence we draw near
There are no words to be spoken
Just a look to say good-bye
I draw a breath and night is broken
As I scream our battle cry.

Ireland I am coming home
I can see your rolling fields of green
And fences made of stone.
I am reaching out won't you take my hand
I'm coming home Ireland.

Yes I am home Ireland