'Famine' 
(Words and music by Sinéad O'Connor, David Clayton, John Reynolds, Timothy Simenon, John Lennon, 
Paul McCartney, Thelonious Monk and Bok/Harnick)
O K, __ I want to talk a-bout Ire-land, 

spe-ci-fi-cally, I want to talk a-bout the fam-ine, 

a-bout the fact that there nev-er real-ly was one. 

There was no 'fam-ine'. 

       Fm9 

See I-rish people were on-ly al-lowed to eat po-ta-toes, 

Bb9 

all of the other food, 

meat, fish, vege-ta-bles, 

         Fm9 

were shipped out of the country un-der armed guard 

           Bb9 

to Eng-land, while the I-rish peo-ple starved, 

Fm9 

          and then in the mid-dle of all this, 

        Bb9 

they gave us mon-ey not to teach our child-ren I-rish, 

Fm9 

          and so we lost __ our hist-ory 

      Bb9 

and this is what I think is still hurt-ing me. ____ 

See, we're like a child that's been bat-tered, 

has to drive it-self out of it's head, be-cause it's frightened, 

still feels all the pain-ful feel-ings, 

but they lose con-tact with the me-mo-ry, 

and this leads to mass-ive self-de-struc-tion, 

al-co-hol-is-m, drug ad-dic-tion, ___ 

all des-per-ate at-tempts at run-ning, 

and in it's worst form, ___ 

be-comes ac-tu-al killing. 

Fm9 

          and if there ev-er is gon-na be heal-ing, 

         Bb9 

there has to be re-mem-ber-ing, __ 

and then grieving; 

Fm9 

          so that the then can be ___ for-giv-ing, ___ 

         Bb9 
  
there has to be know-ledge, and un-der-stand-ing. 

                        Bb9 

All the lone-ly peo-ple, 

Fm9                                                             Bb9 

          where do ___ they all ___ come from? ___ 

An A-me-ri-can ar-my re-gu-la-tion 

says you must-n't kill more than 10 per-cent of a na-tion, 

cos' to do so caus-es per-ma-nent 'pys-cho-lo-gi-cal dam-age' 

It's not per-ma-nent, but they did-n't know that, 

a-ny-way, dur-ing the sup-posed 'fam-ine', 

we lost a lot more than 10 per-cent of our nat-ion 

through deaths on land, or in ships of e-mi-gra-tion, 

but what fi-nal-ly borke us was not star-vation, 

but its 

Fm9 

use in the con-trol-ing of our e-du-ca-tion. 

Bb9 

Schools go on a-about 'Black For-ty Sev-en', 

Fm9 

          on and on a-bout 'The Ter-ri-ble Fam-ine,' 

     Bb9 

but what they don't say is in truth 

                             Fm9 

there real-ly nev-er was one. 

Fm9                          Bb9 

          All the lone-ly peo-ple, 

Fm9                                                 Bb9 

          where do ____ they all __________ come from ? 

                                 Bb9 

         All the lone-ly peo-ple, 

Fm9                                                   Bb9 

         Where do ____ they all belong? ___ 

Fm9 

          So lets take a look shall we? _ 

       Bb9 

The high-est sta-tis-tics of child a-buse in the E.E.C. 

Fm9 

and we say we're a Christ-ian coun-try, 

Bb9 

         but we've lost con-tact with our hist-ory, 

Fm9 

See, we use to wor-ship God as a mo-ther __ 

          Bb9 

We're suf-fering from Post Trau-ma-tic Stress Dis-or-der. 

Fm9 

Look at all our old men in the pubs, 

Bb9 

         look at all our young peo-ple on drugs, 

we used to wor-ship God as mo-ther, 

now look at what we're do-ing to each-other. 

We've ev-en made kill-ers of our-selves. __ 

The most child-like trust-ing peo-ple in the U-ni-verse, 

and this is what's wrong with us. 

Our his-to-ry books, the par-ent fig-ures lied to us. 

I see the I-rish _ as a race __ 

like a child 

that ___ got it-self bashed in the face. 

Fm9 

And if there ev-er is gon-na be heal-ing, 

         Bb9 

there has to be re-mem-ber-ing, __ 

and then grieving; 

Fm9 

        so that the then can be ____ for-giv-ing, __ 

         Bb9 

there has to be know-ledge and un-der-stand-ing. 
  

Fm9                          Bb9 

          All the lone-ly peo-ple, 

Fm9                                                 Bb9 

          where do ____ they all __________ come from ? 

Fm9                          Bb9 

          All the lone-ly peo-ple, 

Fm9                                                 Bb9 

          where do ____ they all __________ come from ? 

Fm7         Gm7 (3 fr)          Fm7          Gm7 (3 fr) 

(repeat and fade)