The Black Velvet Band

This song deals with the dangers of petty crime which can lead to transportation to the penal colony of Australia.Though it is sometimes claimed as an Australian song, it probably originated in Britain. The earliest known version was published in Manchester between 1837 and 1853, and sets the song in Barking, Essex. It has no chorus, but begins:

One day, being out on a ramble, alone by myself I did stray,
I met with a young gay deceiver, while cruising in Ratcliffe Highway;
Her eyes were as black as a raven, I thought her the pride of the land,
Her hair, that did hang o'er her shoulders, was tied with a black velvet band.

It is very popular in Ireland, where, of course, it is claimed as an Irish song.

It has been recorded by many Irish groups, including The Dubliners, Dropkick Murphys, the High Kings and Dermot O'Reilly & Fergus O'Byrne.

This video was filmed was shot at a barbecue with members of the Hong Kong Folk Society at Li Po Chun United World College in Shatin. There is a bit of confusion about the words as John Walsh, singing the chorus with me, is, of course, more familiar with the Irish version!

The lyrics are here.

Botany Bay

Ironically, my first exposure to this popular "Australian" ballad is hearing it sung by American folksinger, Burl Ives, on one of my parents' 78 records. It was probably one of the first songs I ever learnt.

It is not really an authentic Australian song as it originally came from the English Music Hall tradition. Jim Jones at Botany Bay seems to give a more realistic picture of the convict days. But it's a good song anyway.

Here is my performance. And here are the lyrics.

Convict Maid

Nearly 25,000 women were transported to Australia as convicts, half of them from Ireland. This is one of the few songs about female convicts.

The tune is based on The Croppy Boy, an Irish song from the 1788 rebellion,

You can hear my performance of the song here, and the lyrics are here.

Jim Jones at Botany Bay

One of my favourite Australian songs from the convict days. The defiant character portrayed here is far from resigned to his fate, and, as a Victorian, I can relate to his comments about New South Wales!

The song probably goes back to about 1830 as it refers to the bushranger Jack Donahue, who ran into the bush to escape the gallows in 1828, but was shot and killed by the mounted police near Campbelltown, N.S.W. in September, 1830.

I first heard it sung by English-Australian folksinger, Martyn Wyndham-Read, on the classic album Moreton Bay (1963), which he made with Brian Mooney and David Lumsden.

It was also recorded by A.L. Lloyd for the Australian EP, Convicts and Currency Lads (1957), and again for the album The Great Australian Legend (1971).

Other recordings are by Bob Dylan, on Good As I Been To You (1992) and Martin Carthy, on Signs of Life (1998).

You can see my performance at the top of this page, and also a live performance at a session of the Hong Kong Folk Society at The Canny Man in Wanchai. Here are the lyrics.

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

Moreton Bay

Another Australian song about transportation, originally known as The Convict's Lament on the Death of Captain Logan.

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 unknown 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.

My video is here, and the lyrics are here.

Van Dieman's Land

Van Dieman's Land is Tasmania, Australia's island state, south of Victoria on the East coast. It was originally named "Van Diemen's Land" by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, in 1642, after Anthony Van Diemen, the Governor of the Dutch East Indies, who had shown him hospitality.

Irish convicts being deported to Van Dieman's Land would first be sent to Mountjoy jail in Dublin, which was the subject of Brendan Behan's song The Ould Triangle. They were then taken to Spike Island Prison in Cork before setting off on the long voyage to Australia (or New Holland, as it was then known). When transportation of convicts ended in 1853 the name was changed to Tasmania (after Abel Tasman) in an attempt to distance it from associations with the penal colony it had been.

This song, though often considered an Australian folk song, probably originated as a broadside in England or Ireland in the 1800s, and is closely related to a song called Young Henry the Poacher or Henry's Downfall, which has been recorded by Ewan MacColl. Like many of the convict songs I sing, this one first came to my attention on the classic LP Moreton Bay and Other Songs Mainly of Convict Origin (1963) which featured Australian folksingers Brian Mooney, Martyn Wyndham-Read and David Lumsden. It was produced by the record company, Discurio, which specialised in folk recordings, headed by Peter Mann, who had a weekly radio program of folk music I used to enjoy and who had formerly been my Geography and German teacher in my early teens. An early critical review of this recording can be seen here.

trepan = to trap, lure, lead astray

Here is my rendition and here are the lyrics.