Name: Irish Ballad
Channel: words and music Tom Lehrer
Description: License options are available for this song. Irish Ballad by Tom Lehrer is a comically gruesome song about a girl kills her entire family on a whim. Then casually admits it to the police because lying is a sin.

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Irish Ballad by Tom Lehrer is a comically gruesome song about a girl kills her entire family on a whim. Then casually admits it to the police because lying is a sin.

mandolin autoharp recorde

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Brobdingnagian Bards

The Original Celtic Renaissance duo from Austin, TX! Called Masters of Traditional Folk by The Austin Chronicle, Marc Gunn and Andrew McKee join the autoharp, r

We are the Brobdingnagian Bards (pronounced brAHb'ding-näg-EE-en). We perform a unique style of Celtic folk music that we like to call "a Renaissance in Celtic music" or "The Original Celtic Renaissance. Ask our fans though, and they'll tell you our music is just plain "fun!" With six studio albums completed in just five years, combined with ten other compilations, singles and EPs, we've been called one of the most-productive Celtic groups around. But we just love playing the music.

Song Info

Genre

Acoustic • Cover Songs

Charts

Peak #173

Peak in subgenre #1

Author

words and music Tom Lehrer

Rights

Gunn-McKee

Uploaded

July 29, 2006

Track Files

MP3

MP3 2.1 MB • 128 kbps • 2:18

Lyrics

About a maid I'll sing this song sing rickety tickety tin
... who did not have her family long
Not only did she do them wrong.
She did everyone of them in.
Them in. She did every one of them in

One morning in a fit of pique sing rickety tickety tin
... she drowned her father in the creek
The water tasted bad for a week
And we had to make do with gin
With gin. We had to make do with gin

Her mother she could never stand sing rickety tickety tin
... stand and so a cyanide soup she planned
The mother died with a spoon in her hand
And her face in a hideous grin
A grin. Her face in a hideous grin

She set her sisters hair on fire sing rickety tickety tin
... and as the smoke and flame grew higher
Danced around the funeral pyre
Playing a violin
O-lin. Playing a violin

She tied her brother down with stones sing rickety tickety tin
... and sent him off to Davy Jones
All they ever found were the bones
And occassional pieces of skin
Of skin. Occassional pieces of skin

One day she had nothing to do sing rickety tickety tin
... she cut her baby brother in two
Served him up in an Irish stew
And invited the neighbors in
-Bors in. Invited the neighbors in.

When at last the police came by sing rickety tickety tin
... these terrible deeds she did not deny
To do so she would have to lie
And lying she knew was a sin
A sin. Lying she knew was a sin

ADDITIONAL VERSE
[Just one last thing before I go sing rickety tickery tin
... there is something I think you ought to know
They had no proof so they let her go
And they say she was tall and thin
And thin. They say she was tall and thin.]

My tragic
tale I won't prolong sing rickety tickety tin
... and if you did not enjoy this song
You've yourself to blame for letting me go on
You should never have let me begin
Begin. You should never have let me begin!