The Victorian Folk Club had a couple of sessions at the Stock Camp at the 2011 National Folk Festival, where I sang some songs.

This Australian song about transportation was originally known as "The Convict's Lament on the Death of Captain Logan." I first heard it sung by Martyn Wyndham-Read on the classic 1963 recording, "Moreton Bay and Other Songs, Mainly of Convict Origin", where he was joined by Dave Lumsden and Brian Mooney. I had the pleasure of hearing them perform some of these songs at the Festival.

For those who don't know Australia's history, Moreton Bay began as a penal settlement for English (and Irish) criminals whose crimes were so petty that they managed to avoid being hanged. For example they may have stolen a loaf of bread to feed their family.

Moreton Bay, in Queensland, was one of the worst penal colonies. Between 1825 and 1830 it was run by Captain Patrick Logan, notorious for his cruel and sadistic treatment of the prisoners. Records kept by one of the prison clerks show that, from February to October in 1828, Logan ordered 200 floggings with over 11,000 lashes. He was killed by Aborigines in 1830 while he was surveying the Upper Brisbane river. When his body was brought back to Moreton Bay, it is reported that the convicts "manifested insane joy at the news of his murder, and sang and hoorayed all night, in defiance of the warders."

The origins of the song are unclear but it may well date back to the time of Logan's death. Bushranger Ned Kelly quoted some of the lines in his "Jerilderie Letter" of 1879. A bushranger, Jack Bradshaw, who wrote a "True History of the Australian Bushrangers" (1911) and "Twenty Years of Prison Life in the Gaols of NSW" attributed the song to Francis MacNamara (Frank the Poet), who spent years in various Australian penal settlements.

Like many Australian songs, this one uses a traditional Irish tune. It is a variation on "Boolavogue", a ballad written by Patrick Joseph McCall (1898) for the centenary of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

This song is on my first CD: "AXIS OF EVIL and other True Stories."

Lyrics and chords:
......... C ........................... F
One Sunday morning as I went walking
....... C .......................... Am
By Brisbane Waters I chanced to stray.
.... C ........................... F
I heard a convict his fate bewailing
..... C .......................... G7 ....... C
As on the sunny riverbank he lay.
"I am a native of Erin's island
Though banished now from my native shore.
They tore me from my aged parents
And from the maiden whom I do adore.

I've been a prisoner at Port Macquarie,
At Norfolk Island and at Emu Plains,
At Castle Hill and at cursed Toongabbie.
At all those settlements I've worked in chains;
But of all the places of condemnation
And penal stations of New South Wales
To Moreton Bay I have found no equal.
Excessive tyranny each day prevails.

For three long years I've been beastly treated
And heavy irons on my legs I wore;
My back with flogging is lacerated
And oftimes painted with my crimson gore.
And many a man from downright starvation
Lies mouldering underneath the clay;
And Captain Logan, he had us mangled
All on the triangles of Moreton Bay.

Like the Egyptians and ancient Hebrews
We were oppressed under Logan's yoke,
Till a native black lying there in ambush
Did give this tyrant his mortal stroke.
My fellow prisoners, be exhilarated
That all such monsters such a death may find!
And when from bondage we are liberated
Our former sufferings shall fade from mind.

You can see a playlist of my Australian songs here: [ Ссылка ]

Lyrics and chords of many of my songs are no longer available, as my website has expired. I am currently posting lyrics to the information panels on all my videos and those that are too long to post in full will be found on my new website: [ Ссылка ]

свернуть