I WISH I HAD SOMEONE TO LOVE ME
An Irish version of The Prisoner's Song as sung by Joe Heaney
Sung by Sally Rogers; Sung by the Dubliners and Imelda May
I wish I had someone to love me,
Someone to call me his own,
Someone to sleep with me nightly,
I weary of sleeping alone.
Meet me tonight in the moonlight,
Meet me tonight all alone,
I have a sad story to tell you
I'm telling it under the moon.
Tonight is our last night together,
Nearest and dearest must part,
The love that has bound us together
Is shredded and torn apart.
I wish I had ships on the ocean
Lined with silver and gold
Follow the ship that he sails in
A lad of 19 years-old.
I wish I had wings of a swallow,
Fly out over the sea
Fly to the arms of my true love
And bring him home safely to me.
“Apparently before this song went through the folk process, it was
one of Vernon Dahlhart's country hits of the late 30's. It went
under the title of "The Prisoner's Song" and a snatch of it
is used at the end of the Bogart movie, Deadend. I
learned this version from Lisa Null, who heard Irish singer
Joe Heaney perform it. I learned it summer 1982.” Sally Rogers
"This is the only song in the English language my grandmother had. And she’s the only one I heard singing it. But I think nowadays a lot of people has it, because I think it’s a beautiful song…. When she was singing it, when we were present, she said ‘someone to be with me nightly’ – she wouldn’t say ‘sleep with me nightly.’ But as we grew older we found out that she had missed a word there – so." Joe Heaney