There’s a man on the run And he’s never been caught He moves at the speed Of the power of thought And he carries the news In a gleam of his eye That what you’ve been told Is a kind of a lie His enemies number fallen priests Men of power and the crooked police Cynics from the skool of hard knocks And a motley crowd of mis-matched other old crocks Who’re never ever gonna catch The Connemara Fox They chased him in Cong They missed him in Maam He was already gone Never giving a damn Wanted dead or alive Up the back of of Dog’s Bay But by the time they arrived He was leagues away In an oyster bar playing dominoes And the only clues he left his foes Were a fistful of dust, a change of the locks The words of a Kris Kristoffersen song, a pair of old socks And graffiti saying so long, s**ers Love, the Connemara Fox He was in Bunnahown On the day of the fair When ship-like clouds Sailed the summer air And a bodhran thumped And a saxophone played As the people jumped And danced at the side of the bay They say he had long elegant fingers And when he was gone magic lingered A bolt of love that stopped the clocks
From the village lane where the washing hung to the city blocks The name on every tongue Was the Connemara Fox He left a diktat On the priest’s window sill It said “Crough Paaaatrick, Sonny Is the paganest hill In the whole lump of Ireland It shone with green light That’s why they buried its power Under Christian rites And that bogus name to which it never belonged That you can’t even rhyme in a spell or a song You’re trying to put life back into the box” And the priest ran out with a yell in the night in his cap and frocks He never even caught sight Of the Connemara Fox He’ll be where there is music He’ll be where there is crack He’ll be howling the blues In the yard out back He’ll be down in the Claddagh Playin’ pitch and toss He says guilt’s an imposter, baby You been double-crossed And just when you think you’ve got him pegged All you’ll see are the backs of his legs A shadow pa**ing way over the rocks A wisp of hair, a ghostly snatch of the sound of a box No one’s ever gonna catch The Connemara Fox The Connemara Fox The Connemara Fox The Connemara Fox The Connemara Fox