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Richard McD. Bridge 3 English/Australian songs (11) 3 English/Australian songs. Help wanted. 18 Nov 98


My wife and I are looking for 3 songs (words and music) of which we have fragments. Even extra fragments would be a help.

The first is an English/Australian convict song.

The section we have (words only) is: -

"Let us drink a good health to our schemers above
Who at length have contrived from this land to remove
These robbers and villains, They'll send us away
To become a new people in Botany Bay.

Some men say they have talents and trades to get bread
But they sponge on mankind to be clothed and fed
They'll spend all they get and turn night into day
Now I'd have all such sots sent to Botany Bay."

The second is also probably English. We have (words only): -

"Don't ask me who I am, my friend,
My answer is a lie.
For I may think I'm another man,
And tomorrow I may die.

Don't ask me who I love, my friend,
My answer is a lie.
For the other my love may not be enough,
And tomorow I may die.

Don't ask me why I fight, my friend,
My answer is a lie.
For I can't kill the other man's right,
And tomorrow I may die.

The ship we sail isn't strong, my friend,
To think so is a lie.
If it sails us now, it won't be for long,
And tomorrow we may die."

The third is about the Princess Alice pleasure steamer disaster, on the River Thames in England, off Rosherville (the now defunct pleasure gardens then just West of Gravesend, Kent). Of course Gravesend is now famous again as the town in England to which Pocahontas went and where (I think) she died and was buried, but that's a complete red herring, interesting only to Disney freaks. We only have the chorus (the tune of which is reminiscent of "the Titanic" a/k/a "the Great Ship" but not the same), as follows

"When the Princess Alice went down on Gravesend reach
Six hundred and forty died together.
Not all of them drowned, as the coroner found.
Some were poisoned by the black stinking river"


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