We are happy to offer some special notes on all of the songs on the LIVE CD. Some of the text will be identical to that found on the CD, while there are special comments and further information added--and, of course, lyrics so that you can sing along!. We hope you will enjoy this companion to your CD purchase.
liner notes
Ever since the first Air Force Academy cadets jumped up and sang, "Come out and fight me like a man!", they've owned the right to sing Black and Tans with us. There have been nights that they've scared old folks and small children, but it's just the right effect for a rousing rebel song in an Irish Pub. 
The song is in reference to the khaki-uniformed, black
beret-wearing British who helped the Irish
constabulary pummel the rebels and innocent civilians
from 1919 to 1921. It was supposedly written
about Dominic's father taunting loyalist neighbours after
a night of drinking.
Formed to supplement the
constabulary, it recruited demobilized British soldiers to maintain operational strength, following widespread resignations and dismissals from the RIC. The name derived from the force's uniform which consisted of both army and police issue. The Black and Tans were given a free hand in their fight against the IRA and acted with extreme lawlessness. The fierceness of their reputation was based on their attacks on innocent civilians and major atrocities such as the burning of Cork City and Balbriggan, Co. Dublin, and Bloody Sunday at Croke Park in November 1921, when they shot into the crowd and killed eleven spectators and one player.
Come Out Ye Black and Tans
I was born in the Dublin Street where the Royal drums did beat
And those loving English feet, they walked all over us,
And each and every night when me Da would come home tight,
He'd invite the neighbours outside with this chorus:
Oh, come out ye Black and Tans, come out and fight me like a man,
Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders,
Tell her how the IRA made you run like hell away
From the green and lovely lanes of Killeshandra.
Oh, come tell her how you slew them ol' Arabs two by two
Like the Zulus they had spears and bows and arrows,
How you bravely faced each one with your sixteen-pounder gun,
And you frightened them damned natives to the marrow.
Oh, come let us hear you tell how you slandered great Parnell
Whom you fought and well and truly persecuted.
Where are your sneers and jeers that you'd only let us hear
When our leaders of sixteen were executed.
The time is coming fast and truly come at last
When each yeoman will be cast aside before us;
And if there be a need, sure me boys will sing "Godspeed!"
With a verse or two of Steven Behan's chorus
