The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #32328   Message #4052525
Posted By: Joe Offer
14-May-20 - 07:22 PM
Thread Name: Jim Jones / Botany Bay: Background?
Subject: DT Correction: JIM JONES (BOTANY BAY)
I think the DT lyrics are more-or-less correct, but I don't like the way they're laid out. Here are the notes on the song from Folk-Legacy CD-71, the self-titled Ian Robb and Hang the Piper album.

Side 1, Band 5.
JIM JONES
I first heard this short, but extremely powerful transportation song
sung by Dave Parry, one of my fellow "Friends of Fiddler's Green." He referred me back to his source, John Kirkpatrick, and also mentioned that, according to Martyn Wyndham-Read, the song is also sung, to a different tune, in Australia. It couldn't be a better tune than this one, so I haven't bothered to look further. I find the last verse particularly intriguing, as it is not common to find such unashamed bitterness and hatred expressed in a song in the first person. Perhaps that is why the song has such impact.

JIM JONES

Come and listen for a moment, lads,
And hear me tell me tale,
How across the sea from England
I was condemned to sail.
Well, the jury found me guilty;
Then says the judge, says he,
"Oh, for life, Jim Jones, I'm sending you
Across the stormy seas.
But take a tip, before you ship
To join the iron gang,
Don't get too gay in Botany Bay,
Or else you'll surely hang.
Or else you'll surely hang," he says,
"And after that, Jim Jones,
It's high up upon the gallows tree
The crows will pick your bones."

Well, our ship was high upon the sea
When pirates came along,
But the soldiers on our convict ship
Were full five hundred strong.
Oh, they opened fire and somehow drove
That pirate ship away.
But I'd rather've joined that pirate ship
Than gone to Botany Bay.
With the storms a-raging 'round us
And the winds a-blowing gales,
I'd rather've drowned in misery
Than gone to New South Wales.
There's no time for mischief there, they say,
Remember that, says they,
Or they'll flog the poaching out of you
Down there in Botany Bay.

Well, it's day and night the irons clang
And like poor galley slaves,
Oh, we toil and toil, and when we die
Must fill dishonoured graves.
But it's bye and bye I'll slip me chains
And to the bush I'll go,
And I'll join the brave bush-rangers there,
Jack Donahue and Co.

And some dark night, when everything
Is silent in the town,
I'll shoot those tyrants, one and all,
I'll gun the floggers down.
Oh, I'll give the law no little shock,
Remember what I say,
And they'll yet regret they sent Jim Jones
In chains to Botany Bay.

Ian - concertina
Grit - guitar
Seamus - fiddle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubv8IwXxD1o


Hmmm. Dylan recorded it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lchbPZyN6-c