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
And back to bed I've traveled
To taste a love as sweet

Well the heart it knows no reasons
And reason never knows
As I lie with them I'm thinking
Of a wild Irish rose

Well I saw the city of angels
It brought a devil out in me
And 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 dizzying heights that brought me
My wild Irish rose

Now red 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