I sing the song of the colony
How many years and you're still not free
And your mother cries, oh 
And you ask "God why?"
Greed is the knife and the scars run deep
How many races with much reason to weep
And your children cry, oh
And you ask "God why?"

Annie, she came from Dunlavin Town
The TB came and killed her family all around
Population booms
Eleven in two rooms
Katie she came from down Townsend street
Ten in a bed and no shoes on their feet
1916 came
They played the patriots game

Freddy, he came from the Iveagh flats
Tenement slums and infested with rats
Sleeping on damp straw
Trying not to break their law
Thomas, he came from Kilmaine in Mayo
Semi starvation was the only life you'd know
In a two room shack
Then jailed in Letterfrack

I sing the song of the colony
How many years and you're still not free
And your mother cries, oh 
And you ask "God why?"
Greed is the knife and the scars run deep
How many races with much reason to weep
And your children cry, oh
And you ask "God why?"

I look to the east, I look to the west
To the north and the south and I'm not too impressed
Time after time, after crime after crime
They raped, robbed, pillaged, enslaved and murdered
Well, Jesus Christ was their God and they done it in His name
So He could take the blame if it's not all a game
With bible in one hand and a sword in the other
They came to purify my land of my Gaelic Irish mothers
And fathers and sisters and brothers

With our own ancient customs, laws, music, art
Way of life and culture, tribal in structure, we had a civilisation
When they were still Neanderthal nations
And we suffer with the Native American, the Indian in Asia
Aboriginal Australia
The African people with their history so deep
And our children still weep and our lives are still cheap
You came from Germany, from France, from England and from Spain
From Belgium, Holland, Portugal, you all done much the same

You took what was not yours, went against your own bible
You broke your own laws just to out do the rival
But did you ever apologize for the hundreds and millions of lives?
You destroyed and terrorised 
Or have you never realized?
Did you never feel shame 
For what was done in your country's name?
And find out who's to blame and why they were so inhumane
And still they teach you in your school about those glorious days of rule
And how it's your destiny to be superior to me
But if you've any kind of mind
You'll see that all human kind
Are the children of this earth
And your hate for them will chew you up and spit you out

You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free
You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free
You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free
Inside our minds we hold, hold the key