Tonight's Music

This is Gaelic Storm singing Johnny Jump Up, about the evils of drinking cider.

I'll tell you a story that happened to me
One day, as I went down to Cork by the Lee:
The sun, it was bright, and the day, it was warm.
Thinks I, "A cold pint wouldn't do me no harm".

I went to the barman; I says, "Give me a stout!" -
Says the barman, "I'm sorry: the beer is sold out;
Try whiskey or vodka ten years in the wood" -
Says I, "I'll try cider - I hear that it's good".

O never! O never! O never again!
If I live to a hundred or a hundred and ten!
For I fell to the ground, and I couldn't get up,
After drinking a pint of that Johnny Jump Up!


After lowering the third, I headed straight for the yard,
Where I bumpeb into Brophy, the big civic guard.
"Come here to me, boy - don't you know I'm the law?";
Well I up with my first, and I shattered his jaw!

He fell to the ground with his knees doubled up,
But it wasn't I hit him; 'twas the Johnny Jump up!
The next thing I saw, down in Cork by the Lee,
Was a cripple on crutches, and he beckoned to me.

"I'm afraid for my life - I'll be hit by a car!
Would you help me across to the Railwaymen's Bar?"
And, after three pints of that cider so sweet,
He threw down his crutches, and he danced on his feet.

Chorus

I went down the Lee Road a friend for to see.
They had him in a madhouse in Cork by the Lee.
And, when I got there - the truth I do tell -
They had the poor bugger locked up in a cell!

Says the doctor to him, "Say these words, if you can:
'Round the ragged rocks the ragged rascal ran' " -
"Tell them I'm not crazy! Tell them I'm not mad!
'Twas only six pints of that cider I had!"

Chorus

A man died in the Union by the name of McNabb.
They washed him and laid him outside on a slab,
And, after the coroner his measure did take,
His wife brought him home to a bloody fine wake.

'Twas about twelve o'clock, and the beer, it was high,
When the corpse, he sat up, and he said, with a cry,
"I can't get to Heaven! So, before I burn up,
I'll drink me a pint of the Johnny Jump Up!".

Chorus