History : English
Go back
Are you a good language detective?
Here are two convict songs. One is genuine, and one is ‘fake' — it was written after the convict system ended.
Using only the language and ideas in the songs decide which is ‘true' and which is ‘fake'.
You can click the Notes to check your answer.
Then use the evidence about the lives of women convicts in a female factory to write your own convict ballad.
Songs - Notes
Song 1
Botany Bay
Farewell to old England forever
Farewell to my rum culls as well
Farewell to the well known Old Bailey
Where I used for to cut such a swell
Singing Tooral liooral liaddity
Singing Tooral liooral liay
Singing Tooral liooral liaddity
And we're bound for Botany Bay
There's the captain as is our commander
There's the bosun and all the ship's crew
There's the first and the second class passengers
Knows what we poor convicts go through
Taint leaving old England we cares about
Taint cos we mis-spells what we knows
But because all we light fingered gentry
Hops around with a log on our toes
These seven long years I've been serving now
And seven long more have to stay
All for bashing a bloke down our alley
And taking his ticker away
Oh had I the wings of a turtle dove
I'd soar on my pinions so high
Slap bang to the arms of my Polly love
And in her sweet presence I'd die
Now all my young Dookies and Dutchesses
Take warning from what I've to say
Mind all is your own as you toucheses
Or you'll find us in Botany Bay
|
Song 2
Convict Maid
Ye London maids attend to me
While I relate my misery
Through London streets I oft have strayed
But now I am a Convict Maid
In innocence I once did live
In all the joy that peace could give
But sin my youthful heart betrayed
And now I am a Convict Maid
To wed my lover I did try
To take my master's property
So all my guilt was soon displayed
And I became a Convict Maid
Then I was soon to prison sent
To wait in fear my punishment
When at the bar I stood dismayed
Since doomed to be a Convict Maid
At length the Judge did me address
Which filled with pain my aching breast
To Botany Bay you will be conveyed
For seven years a Convict Maid
For seven long years oh how I sighed
While my poor mother loudly cried
My lover wept and thus he said
May God be with my Convict Maid
To you that here my mournful tale
I cannot half my grief reveal
No sorrow yet has been portrayed
Like that of the poor Convict Maid
Far from my friends and home so dear
My punishment is most severe
My woe is great and I'm afraid
That I shall die a Convict Maid
I toil each day in greaf and pain
And sleepless through the night remain
My constant toils are unrepaid
And wretched is the Convict Maid
Oh could I but once more be free
I'd never again a captive be
But I would seek some honest trade
And never become a Convict Maid
|
Song Lyrics: From Penguin Book of Australian Ballads, Penguin Group (Australia). Also available at Australian Folk Songs website, http://folkstream.com, accessed 12 January 2006. (Spelling as in the original.)
Top
Notes for Song 1
First published in Sydney Golden Songster in 1893 This song is a burlesque [a composition which treats the subject with mock dignity for the sake of making the audience laugh], written by Stephens and Yardley, from the comedy Little Jack Shepherd that played in London in 1885, and in Melbourne in 1886. Botany Bay shares two verses with Farewell to Judges and Juries a broadside [a large sheet of paper with printing on one side, designed to be pasted on a wall] c.1820.
Notes for Song 2
From Butterss & Webby Penguin Book of Australian Ballads where the song is called The London Convict Maid with the note: 'From a broadside [a large sheet of paper with printing on one side, designed to be pasted on a wall] in the Mitchell Library. Printed by Birt, 39 Great St. Adrew Street, Seven Dials'. This tune is a variant of the Irish song from 1788 rebellion, The Croppy Boy, a tune also used for the British ballad McCaffery.
Top
