Just Another Town song lyrics and guitar chords
Written and recorded by singer / songwriter Johnny Duhan and taken from the album ''Just Another Town.
JUST ANOTHER TOWN
Just Another Town is a hymn to the town John grew up in, Limerick City. "There was a lot to be disturbed about in the town (as in all towns), but on certain summer evenings when the sun was going down and the brass band was practising up the hill, I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else". Johnny Duhan
(C) And in the band-room up (F) on the (G) hill
(C) A brass band’s playing, I can (F) hear it (G) still –
The (Em) slide (Am) trombone is (F) softly (G) blown.
The old nurse is on her way to the shops.
The epileptic suddenly drops.
Down the hill my father’s in the docks.
In the bar the drinking never stops.
Bobby throws down a pair of queens.
The church bell interrupts someone’s dreams.
Someone’s talking of football teams.
Some girl is straightening her nylon seams.
And the street is drifting into evening
While the sun is going down.
I’m just back there capturing the feeling
Though it’s just another town,
Just another town.
JUST ANOTHER TOWN
Just Another Town is a hymn to the town John grew up in, Limerick City. "There was a lot to be disturbed about in the town (as in all towns), but on certain summer evenings when the sun was going down and the brass band was practising up the hill, I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else". Johnny Duhan
(C) And in the band-room up (F) on the (G) hill
(C) A brass band’s playing, I can (F) hear it (G) still –
The (Em) slide (Am) trombone is (F) softly (G) blown.
The old nurse is on her way to the shops.
The epileptic suddenly drops.
Down the hill my father’s in the docks.
In the bar the drinking never stops.
Bobby throws down a pair of queens.
The church bell interrupts someone’s dreams.
Someone’s talking of football teams.
Some girl is straightening her nylon seams.
And the street is drifting into evening
While the sun is going down.
I’m just back there capturing the feeling
Though it’s just another town,
Just another town.
Just Another Town is a portrait of the city I grew up in. It sings of the people and location that formed me. Its melody and poetry come from the homes, bars, dancehalls, chapels, gardens, prisons, factories, and the very streets of the town it celebrates.
It is not a nostalgic look back in blinkered pleasure. The land- scape is urban, gritty and hard, and the characters are flawed and damaged.
DH Lawrence once described towns as "scabs" on the face of the earth before he attempted to flee back to some primitive idyll. Modern cities are indeed scabs on the face of the world, but the way I see it, scabs are healing skin formations in the process of transforming damaged tissue back into healthy flesh. One of the greatest achievements of mankind, I believe, is that we have learned to live in relative harmonious community in vast cities all over the world in a relatively short space of time.
A spiritual dimension lies behind the ordering process that has brought about this transformation. Just Another Town attempts to illustrate some of the elements and forces that bound together the fragile community I grew up with. It also shows how youthful innocence can act as a compass to guide us in doubting times.
Just Another Town opens with the sound of a horn heralding Another Morning. Living as our family did close to Limerick's army barracks, the horn is significant as I recall being woken on many occasions in my youth by the echo of the dawn reveille coming down Barrack-hill. The room into which the sound and sunlight seeped was a tiny bedroom that I shared with three brothers, all crammed into a set of two-tiered bunks; Michael and Barry at either end on the bottom and Eric on top. Being the eldest boy (I was twelve or thirteen at the time recalled in the song) I had the privilege of a single bed all to myself.
The first thing that faced me each morning when I woke was a framed print of Our Lady of Fatima, to whom my mother was devoted. The walls were also decorated with a variety of oil and watercolour paintings by my brother Eric, and the ceiling was outlined with the contours of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam Sistine mural etched in charcoal by my brother Michael, who was devoted to the great Florentine master and happy to share part of his name.
Though surrounded by my brothers' first artistic endeavours, my opening song doesn't focus on them. The light gleaming through the narrow framed window and the sights, sounds and smells coming in from the awakening town outside, these are the remembered elements that fired my blood with the lust to be up and out in the thick of it, where bells were ringing, neighbours were chatting and humming, and where, most important of all, young girls would soon be out and about in their bright school uniforms.
Johnny Duhan
It is not a nostalgic look back in blinkered pleasure. The land- scape is urban, gritty and hard, and the characters are flawed and damaged.
DH Lawrence once described towns as "scabs" on the face of the earth before he attempted to flee back to some primitive idyll. Modern cities are indeed scabs on the face of the world, but the way I see it, scabs are healing skin formations in the process of transforming damaged tissue back into healthy flesh. One of the greatest achievements of mankind, I believe, is that we have learned to live in relative harmonious community in vast cities all over the world in a relatively short space of time.
A spiritual dimension lies behind the ordering process that has brought about this transformation. Just Another Town attempts to illustrate some of the elements and forces that bound together the fragile community I grew up with. It also shows how youthful innocence can act as a compass to guide us in doubting times.
Just Another Town opens with the sound of a horn heralding Another Morning. Living as our family did close to Limerick's army barracks, the horn is significant as I recall being woken on many occasions in my youth by the echo of the dawn reveille coming down Barrack-hill. The room into which the sound and sunlight seeped was a tiny bedroom that I shared with three brothers, all crammed into a set of two-tiered bunks; Michael and Barry at either end on the bottom and Eric on top. Being the eldest boy (I was twelve or thirteen at the time recalled in the song) I had the privilege of a single bed all to myself.
The first thing that faced me each morning when I woke was a framed print of Our Lady of Fatima, to whom my mother was devoted. The walls were also decorated with a variety of oil and watercolour paintings by my brother Eric, and the ceiling was outlined with the contours of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam Sistine mural etched in charcoal by my brother Michael, who was devoted to the great Florentine master and happy to share part of his name.
Though surrounded by my brothers' first artistic endeavours, my opening song doesn't focus on them. The light gleaming through the narrow framed window and the sights, sounds and smells coming in from the awakening town outside, these are the remembered elements that fired my blood with the lust to be up and out in the thick of it, where bells were ringing, neighbours were chatting and humming, and where, most important of all, young girls would soon be out and about in their bright school uniforms.
Johnny Duhan
