Ireland

It seemed like everything we heard and hoped might be true

We got a ride right away and she took us to the dunes

And we fell asleep to the sounds of a carnival

From a village further down the beach

We woke up the next morning on a bed of tiny flowers,

Packed the tent and went to get somethin' to eat

We bought a cheap jar of peanut butter and a loaf of fresh white bread,

We made sandwiches on the beach; life doesn't get any better than this

We walked in for free to the first castle that we found

It was empty, it was late, it became our campground

And we spotted a tent and we met another camper

And he told us his sad story--

Well he had been dumped by a girl that he loved and he told us not to worry

You can camp anywhere, no one's gonna care; why would they?

"It's not like this at home," we told him, "you know"

He said your home's so far away

We went west all the way 'til the land ran out

We slept at an empty house in the middle of a tiny town

We met a man at a crossroads who said it was his dream to someday come to Bloomington

We thought it was funny because for you and me, it was our dream to be here in Ireland

He was a big fan of John Melloncamp; we told him everything we knew about him

We invited him to come and stay at our house; when we got to our stop he didn't want us to get out

We stayed the night at the house of a guy from Albany

He was glad to meet Americans; he made us spaghetti

We met a man who said he was a doctor and he took us on some of his house calls

He taught us the best way to get a donkey to come to you is not to pay them any attention at all

And I crawled to the edge and peeked over my head and looked down to the sea

It was two thousand feet to the water below; it looked so blue, it looked so deep

And don't ever let 'em tell you that it rains in Ireland

Well if they tell you that you can be sure they've never been

'Cause the sun is always shinin' and the hills are always green

And people are always smilin' and offerin' you drinks

We'd set up our tent on the cliffs right by the sea

Almost every night and the waves rocked us to sleep

The postman from Wales and his friend from England

Bought us fries at the westernmost pub

We sat with them and two others we'd met

And we all watched the postman get drunk

And at first the Burren might seem like a waste land of broken stones

Look in the cracks and you'll see there's a secret there that grows

And Galway City really feels a lot like home

We went through Connemara and up to Sligo

And at the Slieve League we wouldn't see anything;

We decided that we should turn back

The mist was so thick that we couldn't find our feet

And the trail was called Deadman's Pass

On one side it was three thousand feet down to the ocean

The other was two thousand feet to the ground

And anyway our time was running out

And we crossed the country in less than a day

Our last ride to Dublin asked us the same things

They asked if we had any kin from Ireland;

They were surprised when we said no

When I said I didn't drink and hadn't tried the Guinness yet

They were the first ones to say, "way to go"

And as our ferry was leaving the Emerald Isle behind

We were already making our plans to come back sometime

And don't ever let 'em tell you that it rains in Ireland

Well if they tell you that you can be sure they've never been

'Cause the sun is always shinin' and the hills are always green

And people are always smilin' and offerin' you drinks