In a field by a river My love and I did lie And on my naked shoulder She too proud to cry She said that I must leave her An icy tear she froze How could I melt the heart Of a wild Irish rose
Well, a gypsy she has made of me A servant of the street Back to bed I have traveled To taste a love as sweet Well the heart, it knows no reasons And reason never knows As I lie with them I am thinking Of my wild Irish rose
Well I saw the city of angels It brought a devil out of me In hell's hotel on Sunset Showed a whore no mercy As the orange sky was screaming From the roof I let her go These are the dizzy heights that brought me My wild Irish rose
Now wild is the rose That she laid on my grave A life is what she wanted And a life I surely gave Like a hundred men before me They lay lying here in rows Young men, bloody As a wild Irish rose