My web friend Jedrzej has a superb picture on his blog, Venividi of birds on a wire which instantly led me to the old Leonard Cohen song of the same name (he did it before with Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bookends“)

When this was a hit in the sixties my friends of the time (you know who you are) who were as addicted to puns as I was , quickly changed it to;
“Like a bird on Dwyer”
thereby totally destroying Cohens beautiful verse.

It would be nice to think that it stopped there.

But no.

The Witchita Lineman, Glen Cambell’s classic;

I hear you singing in the wire.
I can hear you thru the whine.
And the Wichita Lineman,
is still on the line.

Soon became:

I hear you singing in Dwyers
(If I could hear you through the wine).

The final indignity happened when at the height of the Troubles the Wolfe Tones were rallying support against internment with their songs.

I hardly need to tell you what “The Men Behind the Wire” became .