IRENE
Copyright ©
Susan Werner
Description: Guitar
Irene will not be coming by at Christmastime this year
Someone else will make the dressing, someone else supply the Christmas cheer
Irene will not be coming by, and it won't be like before
It won't be the same Christmas anymore
Irene was raised on German and on homegrown grade-A milk
She cooked like Betty Crocker and she spoke like Lawrence Welk
Irene knew Saint Jude personally and believed in Kennedies
The Church was very Vatican and brutal on the knees
But Irene will not be coming by at Christmastime this year
Someone else will say the blessing, sing "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear"
Irene will not be coming by, and it won't be like before
It won't be the same Christmas anymore
Irene had the big farmhouse with the lane that drifted shut
Leander came and pulled us out and saved our frozen you-know-what
A sea of Holstein dairy cows would come home when he called them
In his honour now my brothers will go bald
Now Leander sleeps beneath the soil atop a prairie hill
And though Leander sleeps I thought Irene, she never will
'Cos she'll see the day I marry and she'll meet my first-born son or daughter
Or she'll be proud that I'm a nun
I woke up just this morning and I felt the strangest need
I tried out the Our Father and I brought Hail Mary up to speed
'Cos my world was held together by Irene and PBS
Irene was doing most of it, I guess
But Irene will not be coming by at Christmastime this year
Oh we'll still get together even though she won't be here
No Irene will not come by, but I remember all her lines
So Irene may still come by
So Irene will still come by
At Christmas time
[Fast Folk, July 1993]
[Thanks to Tim Dunleavy for these lyrics.]