I Married an English Rose – Song Description
“Some things in this life are worth looking foolish for, too.” The comedy here is built on a string of increasingly transparent “coincidences,” and it would be easy to read the whole song as a lighthearted account of a man’s persistence paying off. I think there’s something a little braver in it than that. Every one of those engineered coincidences is a small risk to his own dignity — the possibility, present in every verse, that she notices exactly what he’s doing and finds it ridiculous rather than charming. He goes ahead anyway. I’ve come to think that willingness to look foolish is actually the clearest evidence of sincerity available to any of us, because dignity is usually the first thing a person protects, and he’s the one handing it over first, before he’s earned anything back. The marriage at the end isn’t really the reward for the scheme. It’s confirmation that the risk he kept taking, verse after verse, was read correctly by the one person whose reading of it actually mattered.
I Married An English Rose
Verse 1
I was thirty-three that summer
Settled in my ways
Working through the weekdays
And drifting through the days
I’d known a few sweethearts before me
Or so I liked to boast
But little did I realise
I’d yet to meet the most
Verse 2
I was walking through Ennis town
On an afternoon in June
Listening to the market crowd
And an old familiar tune
Then someone passed beside me
And for a moment time stood still
The kind of face that turns a head
No matter how strong your will
Chorus
I married an English rose
Who came to County Clare
I’d never seen such beauty
Until I saw her there
And though it took some time to win her
And more than one hopeful prayer
I married an English rose
And found my future there
Verse 3
I watched her cross the square that day
Then disappear from sight
And spent the next two hours wondering
Where she’d gone that night
I tried to act indifferent
Like any grown man should
But following clues around the town
Didn’t make me look too good
Verse 4
I asked a dozen questions
That I shouldn’t really ask
The butcher and the publican
Helped me with my task
The lads enjoyed the spectacle
And laughed behind my back
Saying “Mick, you’ve lost your senses”
And perhaps I had, in fact
Verse 5
I learned she loved the coastline
And walking by the sea
So strangely I developed
The very same hobby
And every place she wandered
By chance I’d soon appear
Though after the fourth coincidence
She knew what brought me near
Bridge
She laughed and said “You’re hopeless”
I said “That may be true”
But some things in this life are worth
Looking foolish for, too
And standing there beside her
Beneath the evening sky
I knew I’d spend the rest of life
Thankful that I’d tried
Chorus
I married an English rose
Who came to County Clare
I’d never seen such beauty
Until I saw her there
And though it took some time to win her
And more than one hopeful prayer
I married an English rose
And found my future there
Verse 6
The years have passed so quickly
As everybody says
Filled with cups of morning tea
And ordinary days
Yet all these years have taught me
As seasons come and go
The greatest gifts are often found
When you’re not looking for them so
Final Chorus
I married an English rose
Who came to County Clare
I’d never seen such beauty
Until I saw her there
And though the years have silvered us
Beyond that young affair
I’d marry that English rose again
If she walked past me there
Lyrics Michael Forty
Voice Michael Forty