The Country Music Festival

It wasn't a good start, the plane had come in late
They'd been storms over Dublin, so I wasn't feeling great
We'd missed Guy Clark and Nanci, so I was trying not to cry
But we downed a pint and swore that we’d have a lovely time
 
We pitched the tent in record speed and ran 'round to the place
Where Emmylou was tuning up, rain still on her face
Silver hair a-blowing, she could only win
My knees proper trembled when she began to sing
 
Sitting down to calm myself, I heard this lovely sound
it was David Lindley's fiddle and the voice of Jackson Browne
When Kenny’s ‘copter landed, there's the biggest cheer you ever heard
He wore a suit of pink, and everyone knew all the words
 
Country music rode the wind
from Navan to Athboy
Don McLean sang “Vincent”
It always makes me cry.
Always makes me cry.
 
We tried to get some sleep - it's a long way that we'd come
But for those crazy cowboys, the night had just begun
Someone played a Dylan tape (‘cos everyone loves him)
Then Dolly, Tammy, Willie, and Dame Loretta Lynn    
 
Ray Wylie Hubbard's tales brought Texas to the crowd
His little boy played blues guitar, and made his Old Man proud
The Del McCoury bluegrass band, best there is, no joke
All the way from Nashville Town y'all, dressed up to meet the folks
 
The bass boom-boomed just like our hearts, the fiddle dipped and soared
The banjo picker blew our minds and the mandolin,... oh Lawd....
A woman with Glen Campbell (and I sobbed into my porter)
Sang that she was proud to be the Rhinestone Cowboy's Daughter
 
Country music rode the wind
from Navan to Athboy
Don McLean sang “Vincent”
It always makes me cry.
Always makes me cry.
 
Well, kids were sporting cowboy hats, in pink and green and blue
Up on daddy's shoulders, staying up 'til two
There was little sleep again that night, 'cos it was Saturday
and all the local girls and boys had come along to play
 
They'd climbed the outer fences, to hear their heroes sing a song
then hung around the tents, to drink and sing the whole night long
So we were pretty sleepy still, when we struck the tent
and drove back to the airport, all our Euros spent
 
and I dreamt on the aeroplane that all those Stars up there
had come back round to our tent, a beer and song to share
But when I woke at Stanstead it was only Al and me
and a warm country feeling rolling ‘round my memory