VINTAGE (LXXIX)

Christy Moore - "The Magdalene Laundries" (Joni Mitchell)

"The Magdalene Laundries were run by the Sisters Of Mercy as orphanages, and young women got terribly abused there. They were basically prisons. This song works in that it's horrific in content, but so beautiful you have to listen. Whenever I perform it, it stills the night, and at the end there's always a silence, as people don't feel it's apt to applaud" (Christy Moore, número de Maio/2012 da "Uncut")

I was an unmarried girl 
I'd just turned twenty-seven 
When they sent me to the sisters 
For the way men looked at me 
Branded as a jezebel 
I knew I was not bound for Heaven 
I'd be cast in shame 
Into the Magdalene laundries 

Most girls come here pregnant 
Some by their own fathers 
Bridget got that belly 
By her parish priest 
We're trying to get things white as snow 
All of us woe-begotten-daughters 
In the steaming stains 
Of the Magdalene laundries 

Prostitutes and destitutes 
And temptresses like me 
Fallen women 
Sentenced into dreamless drudgery 
Why do they call this heartless place 
Our Lady of Charity? 
Oh charity! 

These bloodless brides of Jesus 
If they had just once glimpsed their groom 
Then they'd know, and they'd drop the stones 
Concealed behind their rosaries 
They wilt the grass they walk upon 
They leech the light out of a room 
They'd like to drive us down the drain 
At the Magdalene laundries 

Peg O'Connell died today 
She was a cheeky girl 
A flirt 
They just stuffed her in a hole! 
Surely to God you'd think at least some bells should ring! 
One day I'm going to die here too 
And they'll plant me in the dirt 
Like some lame bulb 
That never blooms come any spring 
Not any spring 
No, not any spring 
Not any spring