Tony Curtis

with
Mullingar Community College

We are the Transition Year Students 2005
And we made this our redemption song
For Amnesty International: it can be sung to any air
Be it your own brand new tune or some old and battered melody -
Chords heard in a church or in a bar, or maybe just in the wind.
The main thing is to sing and sing and sing.
It seems to us that although every small bird still sings,
it may be the evening of the world
when small guns cast long, dark shadows.

We care and we wish to see
And so we sing for

A right to life
      A right to be human
A right to vote
      A right to be alive
A right to speech
      A right to be happy
A right to education
      A right to birdsong
A right to have a fair trail
      A right to have family
A right to religious freedom
      A right to have friends
A right to liberty
      A right to laugh
A right to equality
      A right to green grass
A right to justice
      A right to dream
To fair treatment
      A right to clothing
A right to protest
      A right to sunshine
A right to silence
      A right to sing
A right to have rights
      A right to rivers
A right to be heard
      A right to the night sky
A right to choice
      A right to touch
A right to be heard
      A right to cloud and rain
A right to love
      A right to harvest
A right to hate
      A right to dogs and cats and birds
A right to travel
      A right to the ocean waves
A right to medical attention
      A right to dolphins and whales
A right to be anything we want
      A right to grace
A right to have a laugh
      A right to mountains
A right to cry
      A right to lie down
A right to work
      A right to sleep
A right to be gay
      A right to celebrate
A right to be black
      A right to play
A right to be white
      A right to write
A right to be different
      A right read
A right to dance
      A right to be alone
A right to speak your mind
      A right to exist on this one blue planet.

Song Lines

I notice the birds go to church
More often than the people now;
They roost on the roof and sing.
I wonder what God makes of
Their feathers and their twittering?

Of course the birds are more
Primitive than us,
They were singing
Before the crosses came
And they will sing
When the crosses are gone.
I have seen them in the
Ruins of monasteries
Come down from the trees
To sing among the stones.

And in graveyards they have
No fear of shadows or ghosts
For they make their nests
In the yew trees beside the graves
And sing, and sing, and sing
As if the poor souls lying there
Should be happy…