Why could you not love me How could you not care
You never sought my company
Or took me anywhere
Your love was in a bottle
Guinness was it's name
I often thought life would be great
If you loved me the same
But you left me to go hungry
While you chased Arthur's brew
I had to rob my friends to eat
That's what you made me do
I know that it was different times
It wouldn't be the norm
For a dad to show affection
Or feelings that were warm
But I watched other fathers
And I knew without a doubt
They wouldn't leave their kids to starve
While they sipped Arthur's stout
And I thought that it was my fault
The sad thing is you see
It didn't stop me loving you
It stopped me loving me
I thought that it was my fault
I must be very bold
It must be something I had done that made your heart so cold
Then one day my brother drowned
It ripped my heart in two
I ran home to get my dad
Because he'd known what to do
My shoes still at the riverside
As I ran down the road
The blood was dripping From my toes
The tears were running down my nose
With blood and snutters flying
I burst into his room
He was still asleep in bed
Though it was afternoon
I screamed Stephen's in the river
And the waters very deep
He just shrugged and turned around
And settled back to sleep
It's like he hit me with a hammer
How could he be so cold
His little boy was drowning
He was only eight years old
The funeral it was very sad
It's times like that you need your dad
But if it's comfort I was looking for
From dear old darling dad
I was sadly disappointed
Because there was none to be had
He said you have no right to cry
Because you left him there to die
You saved yourself and ran away
Or he would still be here today
I didn't leave him on his own
I would scream and shout
There were grownups at the river
They were trying to get him out
But it didn't matter what I said
When no-one was about
He'd call me little killer
And say the police will soon be out
He said you won't get away with this
Because the neighbours know as well
One of them will call the cops
You'll end up in a cell
Nine years old and broken
Ashamed of what I'd done
Wrecked with grief
And full of fear for what was yet to come
I thought the police would come for me
The neighbours they would tell
My hands had started shaking
I was stuttering as well
The days went into weeks
Then the months went slowly by
And it dawned on me that what he said
Was just a nasty lie
It filled my heart with hatred
That I carry to this day
Any love I felt for him Died in flames that day
There is a wise old saying
I heard back in the day
The ball would never reach its goal If it wasn't kicked that way
If all the kicks I got in life
Were kicking me towards my wife I'd take them all and even more
To have this family I adore
My kids don't know hunger
I made him stay away
My family know I love them
I show them every day
So perhaps i should be grateful For the drunk that's my old man
Everything thing he did to me Put me where I am.