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If I'd Known

from Cenotaph Tapes by John Carroll

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lyrics

If I’d known one day
That I’d never look back
At the people and the places
The taverns and the steeples
Of Limerick;
‘You don’t know what you’ve got’, she said
‘You don’t know what you have’
But music’s never been much to her
It’s always been a fad

Faraway in China
The world’s a different place
I’m trying hard to understand it
But every day’s a race,
I've been losing touch with home
And it's a different kind of death
You accept it for a friend
Or you’re on the dole again.

The faces that I once called friends
Barely contact me
While the new life that I’m building
Comes with firewalls and proxies
The best friend that I've got
Is the taxman, I’m sure,
He’s still got time for me,
He’s always knocking on my door

I've always had the time for you
And you’re always on my mind
But I left you for the unknown
With the horizon far behind,
If I ever come back to you again
Well, things won’t be the same,
But I hope you’ll think of me
With affection, my friend.

Her eyes were always wide
Near Sarsfield Bridge by a full moon
And she’d light up Poor man’s Kilkee
Til the tawny hours would come
And we always had the music
A place you couldn’t see
But we found it there in Limerick
It's the only other part of me.

The longer that I stay here
I look at my photographs
And I realise you’re not stagnant
But I can’t help thinking back,
To the distances we’ve travelled
Our past collecting dust
And an homage to the arseholes
That never gave any time to us

Every second I delay now
Well, something hits me hard
That where she’s headed I won’t be
A-howling in the dark,
If he’s combing back your hair
If he’s looking you in your eyes
Well I hope you’ve finally found your love
Without promise or disguise

If I’d known one day
That I’d never look back
At the people and the places
The taverns and steeples
Of Limerick

If I’d known one day
If I’d known one day

credits

from Cenotaph Tapes, released April 12, 2014

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John Carroll Hangzhou, China

John Carroll is a songwriter and artist from Limerick, Ireland. Carroll's songs can be introspective acoustic narratives, or tongue-in-cheek tunes about acrophobic atheist taikounauts, all topped off with lashings of lyrics and phrases influenced by his adopted home in Hangzhou, China. ... more

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