How do you fall in love?

I slipped down a cliff in Kilkee

And skint my shins in the fall,

I fell in a well on Jackson’s farm

And came to no harm at all.

Once I fumbled, then tumbled and flew

from the shingles, a goodly distance above,

I know how I made all these blunders,

But how did I fall in love?

At seven years young I tasted the host

Eyes clamped, tongue stretched like a sheet,

At twelve years of age I fell off my bike

Incisors in bits on the street,

At fifteen I dragged on my very first fag

A drug I was innocent of,

It’s well I recall these simple events

But when did I fall in love?

The Sisters of Mercy were teachers, the best,

That’s why we enrolled in that school,

And I never played soccer, an auld sissy’s game,

Gaelic or nothing; the rule.

We Massed it on Sunday to satisfy mother

With topcoat and wool scarf and glove,

A reason for every gesture and act,

But why did I fall in love?

In Athlone of the Shannon and soldiers

I slept for the first time away,

In Galway I got my first glimpse of the sea

In Roscommon I earned my first pay.

In Ballinasloe they removed my appendix,

An act I was unaware of,

In Limerick I first got a hell of a beatin’

But where did I fall in love?

Now falling from grace can be a disgrace,

As is freezing on stage in a farce,

And falling behind on your mortgage

Is a serious pain in the arse.

To fall out of favour is hardly to savour

When it comes to push or to shove,

Still nothing compares with the terror

Or truth or nightmare of falling in love.