The Prodigals – Ballybay lyrics

Greg: "And now we're going to play a little song,
a very tragic tune about a woman with a wooden leg
who dumped her husband in a quarry."

Crowd: "Yay!"

In the town of Ballybay-hay
There was a maiden dwelling.
I knew her very well
And her story's worth a telling.
And her father kept a still,
And he was a good distiller....
When she took to drink as well
Well the devil couldn't fill her

A ring-a-dom a doo, a ring-a-dom a delly

She had a wooden leg it was hollow down the middle
She used to tie a sting in it and play it like a fiddle
She fiddled in the hall, she fiddled in the alleyway
She didn't give a damn sure she had to fiddle anyway

A ring-a-dom a doo, a ring-a-dom a delly

She said she wouldn't dance unless she had her welly
But when she had it on she would dance as well as any.
Once said she wouldn't go to bed unless she had her shimmy
But when she had it on she would go as quick as any.
A ring-a-dom a doo, a ring-a-dom a delly

She had lovers by the score every Tom, Dick and Harry
And she courted night and day but still she wouldn't marry
Then she fell in love with a fellow with a stammer
When he tried to get away, she hit him with a hammer

A ring-a-dom a doo, a ring-a-dom a delly

Greg:"Andrew Harkin on bass!" (bass solo)

Childer on the stairs and childer in the pyre
And another ten or twelve sitting rolling by the fire
And she fed him on potatoes
and a soup she made with nettles
And a lot of hairy bacon that she boiled in a kettle

A ring-a-dom a doo, a ring-a-dom a delly

She led a sheltered life, eating porridge and black pudding.
And she terrorized her man until he died quite sudden.
And when her husband died she was feeling very sorry
She rolled him in a bag and she threw him in a quarry