Foreword:
In my opinion this is one of the key songs of Christy Moore's career epitomizing his pursuit
of social justice and courage to speak out about issues of the day. This tells the story
of the Star Dust nightclub tragedy of 14/2/1981 and the subsequent injustice and questionable
impartiality of the legal system, the sham enquiry that without evidence exonerated the owners
from wrongdoing by blaming probable cause as arson (yes it was found to be probably the
victims fault for burning themselves alive), and saving the insurer a vast fortune on
compensating the 48 deaths and 215 seriously injured; and the owners untested for negligence in the
safe storage of chemicals, the chaining of fire exits and the boarding up windows with steel plates
This song was played non stop in 1985 for 10 weeks (wearing out cassette tapes and CDs)
in protest of a new niteclub being built on the same site with the insurance payout,
while the victims were thrown to the gutter and 3 decades later justice had not been served.
The Government of the day, the supposed representatives of the people sued Christy Moore for libel
and forced his Ordinary Man album to be recalled, making the few copies out there quite rare.
Many younger people in Ireland are not aware of this song due to it being banned
from the airwaves in the republic.
Time Signature 3/4
This is just my version and is not an attempt to be an exact copy of Christy's work
Chords (use these if there is any conflict with the automated diagrams)
C x32010
G 320033
F xx3211
picking pattern is base note then 2 plucks of 3 strings as tabbed below.
then at the end of the sentences a single strum for 2 bars (the extra bar on every 2nd line)
G C F
xxxxxx xxxxxx xx1x1x
xx3x3x xx1x1x xx2x2x
xx0x0x xx0x0x xx3x3x
xx0x0x xx2x2x 0xxxxx
xxxxxx 3xxxxx xxxxxx
3xxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx
or just by string numbers if you dont understand tab yet
G
6, 432, 432
C
5, 432, 432
F
4, 321, 321
VERSES
C C G C
C C F G G
C C F C
C C G C C
F F C C
C C F G G
C C F C
C C G C C
CHORUS
F F C C
C C F G G
C C F C
C C G C C
most notable memory aids are:
2nd half of verse and chorus are same chords,
2nd third and 4th lines of each section the same
[VERSE 1]
C C G C
St. Val-en-tine's day comes a-round once a year,
C C F G G
our thought turn to love as the day it draws near,
C C F C
When sweet-hearts and dar-lings, hus-bands and wives,
C C G C C
Pledge love and de-vo-tion for.the rest of their lives
F F C C
As day turns to even-ing soon night-time does fall,
C C F G G
Young peo-ple get ready for the Val-en-tine's Ball,
C C F C
As the night rings with laugh-ter some peo-ple still mourn
C C G C C
The for-ty eight chil-dren who ne-ver came home
[CHORUS]
F F C C
Have we for-got-ten the suff-ering and pain
C C F G G
the sur-viv-ors and vic-tims of.the fire in Ar-tane,
C C F C
the moth-ers and fath-ers for-ever to mourn
C C G C C
the for-ty eight chil-dren who ne-ver came home.
[VERSE 2]
C C G C
it's down to the Star-dust they all made their way
C C F G G
The boun-cers looked on as they lined up to pay
C C F C
The rec-ords are spin-ning there's dan-cing as well
C C G C C
Just how the fire start-ed sure no one can tell.
F F C C
In.a mat-ter of sec-onds con-fus-ion did reign
C C F G G
The room was in dark-ness fire ex-its were chained
C C F C
The fire-fight-ers wept for they could not hide,
C C G C C
Their sorr-ow and an-ger for those left in-side.
[CHORUS]
[VERSE 3]
C C G C
All a-round the city the bad news it spread
C C F G G
There's a fire in the Star-dust there's for-ty eight dead
C C F C
Hun-dreds of chil-dren are in-jured and maimed
C C G C C
And all just be-cause the fire ex-its were chained.
F F C C
Our lead-ers were shocked, grim state-ments were made
C C F G G
They shed tears by the graves as.the bo-dies were laid
C C F C
The vic-tims have wait-ed in vain for four years
C C G C C
It seems like our lead-ers shed croc-o-dile tears.
[CHORUS]
[VERSE 4]
C C G C
Half a mill-ion was spent on so-lic-itor's fees,
C C F G G
A for-tune to.the ow-ner and his fa-mil-y
C C F C
It's hard to be-lieve not one pen-ny came
C C G C C
To the work-ing class peo-ple who suff-ered the pain.
F F C C
Days turn to weeks and weeks turn to years
C C F G G
Our laws fav-our the rich or so it app-ears
C C F C
A wo-man still waits for her kids to come home
C C G C C
In-jus-tice breeds an-ger and that's what's been done.
[CHORUS]
