G
Matty walked out on a frozen night
C                             G
Making for the pub, shoulders hunched up tight
C                G
Head down on the railroad track
        D                 G
And his old cow Delia sad lowing him back
G                      
He met with a dark and staggering man
C                               G
And as he passed him by shouted back at him
C                                G
"Hey Matty, can't you see what's become of me
        D              G
In this country of the blind!
D                        G
The house I have left is dead to me
D                    G
To my rhyming and my poetry
                    C
All I've got is the beat of the stagger
D                        G
Heading down the Curragh line!"


[Verse 2]

G
But Matty passed on as quick as he could
C                                    G
He couldn't stand such a drunken man sober
C                     G
All he wanted was the lights of the bar
D                         G
The Nightingale, the Wild Rover
D                         G
When he came in they were sighing
G
"Look who's back, Did they throw you out of Jack's
G
With your spoutin' and your swearin'
D                           G
We don't want to hear about Bunker Hayden
C                            D           G
But maybe you'll sing us the Girls of Kinkane"

[Instrumental]

G   C G C G D G

[Verse 3]
G                       
The Fear an Tí eyed him steadily
C                          G
As he handed him a pint of porter
C                                G
"You must have seen the bishop's ghost tonight
           D                     G
To put the dry look back in your eye!"
G                      
But Matty would not be taken in
C                         G
By their jibin' and their regalin'
C                  G
He found himself a fresh-blown crew
         D                                G
And fell in with their sportin' and their balin'


[Verse 4]
D                            G  
As he was going home, on the very same spot
D                    G
He met with his dark familiar
                        C           
He seen him coming back down the line
       D                      G
He was bright and strange and fine
G                    
As he passed him by, Matty threw out his arms
          C                G
Trying to grab hold of his likeness
       C                             G
In the morning all the found was his frozen corpse
       D                   G
At the butt of the Curragh line
       D                              G
At the wake they were lashing out the drops of brandy
G
The aul-fashioned habit
       D                             G
In the church they were lashing down pounds and fivers
   C                          D          G
So Matty would be fine in the old by and by