G'day,

Hmmmm... It seems that I was promising - about 3½ years back - to transcribe the dots of this transcontinental pastiche...

I was looking up the words, since I had it on the list for my Monday Mob (the Bush Music Club Music Session doing a public gig ... Ashfield Carnival of Cultures!). Having done the gig - I guess I had better set down something like the dots. (I'll also send the simple MIDI off to MMario.)

BTW: The words I have posted tend to cleave a littl more accurately to the sources from which stanzas 3 and 4 were stolen ...


Poor Ned (You're Better Off Dead)
Trevor Lucas (plus 'Trad': v. 3 & John Manifold: v. 4)

Eighteen-hundred and seventy-eight
Was the year I remember so well.
They put my father in an early grave
And slung my mother in gaol.
Now I don't know what's right or wrong
But they hung Christ on nails.
Six kids at home and two on the breast:
They wouldn't even give her bail.
Chorus:
Poor Ned, you're better off dead;
At least you'll get some peace of mind.
You're out on the track, they're right on your back -
Boy, they're gonna hang you high!

You know I wrote a letter 'bout Stringy Bark Creek
So they would understand
That I might be a bushranger
But I'm not a murdering man.
I didn't want to shoot Kennedy
Or that copper Lonigan.
He alone could have saved his life
By throwing down his gun.
Chorus:
Poor Ned, you're better off dead…

I'd rather die like Donahoe,
That bushranger so brave,
Than be taken by the Government
And treated like a slave
I'd rather fight with all my might,
As long as I'd eyes to see;
I'd rather die ten thousand deaths,
Than die on the gallows tree.                †
Chorus:
Poor Ned, you're better off dead …

You know they took Ned Kelly
And they hung him in the Melbourne Gaol.
He fought so very bravely
Dressed in iron mail.
But no man single-handed
Can hope to break the bars.
It's a thousand like Ned Kelly
Who'll hoist the flag of stars.                ‡
Chorus:
Poor Ned, you're better off dead…

†: A light rewrite of stanza 7 (of 8) "Young Ned Kelly" (or "My Name is Edward Kelly") collected <1959 by the Moreton Bay Bushwhackers (Queensland Folklore Society) and published Queensland Centenary Pocket Songbook, 1959, p. 16.

‡:        A minor reworking of the last verse of John Manifold's "The Death of Ned Kelly", published: The Death of Ned Kelly and Other Ballads, London 1941.

As the Mudcat no longer supports Al of Oz's MIDItext program, here is the ABC component of the same … decodable at various free sites:

ABC format:

X:1
T:
M:4/4
Q:1/4=128
K:C
B3BB2B2|B2A2A2B2|c3cccc2|B6B2|B3BBBBB|B2A2A2B2|
c3cccc2|B6G2|B3BB2B2|B2A2A2B2|c3cc2c2|B6G2|
B3BB2B2|B2AAA2B2|ccccB2A2|G8|B4B3B|B2AAA2B2|
ccccB2A2|G6A2|B3BBB2B2|B2AAA2B2|ccccB2A2|
G13/4||

Regards,

Bob

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