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I was an unmarried girl
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I'd just turned twenty-seven
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When they sent me to the sisters
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For the way men looked at me
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Branded as a jezebel
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I knew I was not bound for Heaven
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I'd be cast in shame
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Into the Magdalene laundries
|
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Most girls come here pregnant
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Some by their own fathers
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Bridget got that belly
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By her parish priest
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We're trying to get things white as snow
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All of us woe-begotten-daughters
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In the streaming stains
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Of the Magdalene laundries
|
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Prostitutes and destitutes
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And temptresses like me--
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Fallen women--
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Sentenced into dreamless drudgery ...
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Why do they call this heartless place
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Our Lady of Charity?
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Oh charity!
|
|
These bloodless brides of Jesus
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If they had just once glimpsed their groom
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Then they'd know, and they'd drop the stones
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Concealed behind their rosaries
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They wilt the grass they walk upon
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They leech the light out of a room
|
They'd like to drive us down the drain
|
At the Magdalene laundries
|
|
Peg O'Connell died today
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She was a cheeky girl
|
A flirt
|
They just stuffed her in a hole!
|
Surely to God you'd think at least some bells should ring!
|
One day I'm going to die here too
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And they'll plant me in the dirt
|
Like some lame bulb
|
That never blooms come any spring
|
Not any spring
|
No, not any spring
|
Not any spring
|
|
|
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-----------------
|
MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES
|
| Joni Mitchell |
