Dan White had often imagined himself to be a victim. From what we know of his reading the night before the assassinations and the tape he was playing in his car, he also believed that he was the living embodiment of the Irish who suffered under British rule. Like the descendants and distantly removed relations of other oppressed peoples, Dan had trouble seeing himself as the tyrant.

In my memory, I will always see
The town that I have loved so well,
Where our school played ball by the gas yard wall
And we laughed through the smoke and the smell.
Going home in the rain, running up the dark lane,
Past the jail and down behind the Fountain.
Those were happy days,
In so many ways,
In the town I loved so well.

In the early mornings the shirt factory's horn
Called women from Creggan, the moor and the bog
While men on the dole played a mother's role,
Fed the children and trained the dogs.
And when times got tough, there was just about enough,
But they saw it through without complaining
For deep inside was a burning pride
In the town I loved so well.

There was music there is in the Derry Air
Like a language we all could understand.
I remember the day when I earned my first pay
And played in a small pick-up band.

There I spent my youth and to tell you the truth
I was sad to leave it all behind me.
For I learned about life and I'd found a wife
in the town I loved so well.

But when I returned, how my eyes have burned
To see how a town could be brought to its knees
By the armored cars and the bombed-out bars
And that the gas that hangs on every tree.
Now, the Army's installed by the old gas yard wall
And the damned barbed wire gets higher and higher.
With their tanks and their guns, 
Oh my god,--what have they done?
To the town I loved so well.

Now the music's gone but they carry on
For their spirit's been bruised, never broken,
They will not forget, but their hearts are set
On tomorrow and peace once again.

For what's done is done and what's won is won,
And what's lost is lost and gone forever.
I can only pray, for a bright, brand new day
In the town I loved so well.