De enige grote hit van de Noord-Ierse songschrijver David McWilliams, zij het merkwaardig genoeg vooral op het continent. In Engeland deed de song helemaal niets. In de jaren ’50 en ’60 sloten veel fabrieken in de Six Counties hun poorten, met als voorspelbaar gevolg hoge werkloosheid, diepe armoede en Dickensiaanse taferelen van dak- en thuislozen die blootsvoets door het afval op straat liepen. McWilliams ontmoette in 1967 in het stadje Ballymena één van de slachtoffers van wat zo fraai als ‘herstructurering’ betiteld wordt en besloot een song aan hem te wijden.
A tenement, a dirty street
Walked and worn by shoeless feet
Inside it’s long and so complete
Watched by a shivering sun
Old eyes in a small child’s face
Watching as the shadows race
Through walls and cracks and leave no trace
And daylight’s brightness shuns
The days of Pearly Spencer
Ahh Ahh
The race is almost run
Nose pressed hard on frosted glass
Gazing as the swollen mass
On concrete fields where grows no grass
He stumbles blindly on
Iron trees smother the air
But withering they stand and stare
Through eyes that neither know nor care
Where the grass has gone
The days of Pearly Spencer
Ahh Ahh
The race is almost run
Pearly where’s your milk white skin
What’s that stubble on your chin
It’s buried in the rot-gut gin
You played and lost not won
You played a house that can’t be beat
Now look your head’s bowed in defeat
You walked too far along the street
Where only rats can run
The days of Pearly Spencer
Ahh Ahh
The race is almost run
The days of Pearly Spencer
Ahh Ahh
The race is almost run
The race is almost run
A tenement, a dirty street
Remember worn and shoeless feet
Remember how you stood to beat
The way your life had gone
So Pearly don’t you shed more tears
For those best forgotten years
Those tenements are memories
Of where you’ve risen from
The days of Pearly Spencer
Ahh Ahh
The race is almost won
Uitgelichte afbeelding: Ballymena in de vroege jaren ’60 – By National Library of Ireland on The Commons – Church Street, Ballymena, Co. Antrim, No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49017807
