Belfast Republican

For various reasons, i've decided to break my rule and do a one-song post.

This song involves me twisting lyrics into the exact opposite of what they were intended (actually, this time it falls short of 100%, but it's close (see this)), for an explanation of that, see this. The rest of the songs/poems can be found by clicking on the "lyrics" label (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).

"Belfast Republican" based on "OC Skinhead" by Final War, lyrics for original are here.

1. Ironically, among Republicans, "OC" stands for "Officer in Command," but the original refers to Orange County, CA, where there's a lot of Nazi skinheads.
2. The song is about the first generation of recruits to the Provisional IRA, and also those who were in the INLA 1974-1982, and kind of the Official IRA until the 1974.
3. '16 refers to the 1916 Easter Rising.
4. The 5th line refers to how most of the first generation of republican paramilitaries in the 1970-1997 conflict had taken part in the Civil Rights movement (probably some very tiny minority of the CRM were involved with republican paramilitaries in the 1970s, and probably some very large majority of 1970s republican paramilitaries had been involved in the CRM)). There's a song I found the lyrics for about 12 years ago, by, I think the Cheiftains (someone named Mick, I think wrote the lyrics) which referred to that. I'd love to find that song.
5. The first line of the 2nd verse is a little off chronologically- although republicans were probably always fairly supportive of the Palestinians, I think that interest only really took off the last 10 years, so I'm not sure how many republicans, if any, in the early years of the conflict, ever wore the keffiyeh.
6. People who join paramilitaries probably move on from throwing petrol bombs, but probably did earlier.
7. The 2nd line/2nd verse is borrowed from the song by Ray Collins I posted as part of the post "I Owe My Allegiance To The Working-Class."
8. Squaddies is a term for British soldiers.
9. The line about beer was already there, and I've heard about republican culture, so I'm leaving it even though Volunteers probably leaned heavily towards being sober when conducting operations.
10. Semtex is plastic explosive, Armalites are rifles.
**11. 35% of this version is me, 67% is the original.
12. I give this song/poem five out of five stars.
13. UPDATE 12/21/10 I just changed the 7th line, now the second half is different from the original.
14. UPDATED 2/8/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
15. The reference to fascism places the poem in conflict with the beliefs of the American authors of the original lyrics, see this for more.

We were born to rise again
to follow the steps of The '16 men
born to fight and born to win,
we are all Republicans
we are the ones who marched on the streets
our voices loud and never discreet
it's our battle in a people's war
now we are stronger than before

Belfast....Republicans

Keffiyehs and petrol bombs in hand
We're rising throughout the land
salute the flag fly it above,
we'll fight for the country that we all love
drink some beer and hit the town,
find some squaddies and shoot them down
Brothers and sisters we stand as one
we fight together against London

Belfast...Republicans

Yea we were born to rise again,
we all remember the '16 men
we've said it before let the battle begin
victory is ours you know we'll win
Semtex, mortars and armalites,
Liberation will guarantee our rights
Injustice and fascism we hate
Squaddies should fuck off before it's too late

Belfast.....republicans

One last note: Even with the songs that are only about 10% me (and at the upper end, one is 75% me), I have a request, although I don't have strong feelings or expectations about this. First, I want credit for these songs. Second, I'd appreciate it if the notes follow the lyrics around the internet. If you modify the lyrics further, please either make some notes for the changes if you leave some of my changes, or just provide a link to this URL so people can see my version. Although I'm not sure how many people will like what I'm doing with the lyrics, to one degree or another (depending on how much I changed them) I'm proud of these songs- and at the risk of getting a little personal, if people like the songs, I could really use the extra boost of getting credit for them right now (or if you don't like them, they were all written by Sarah Palin- that fascist, what kind of sick person enjoys altering racist lyrics?).