Your Australian version is very close to the one Frankie Armstrong did in Songs and Ballads. I learned it from there. For some reason (chemicals?) there are no gaps in my transcription of the lyrics, I was 18 when I learned it and I listened to it many, many times to get the words. I've filled in what appeared to be the gaps in the most definitive version (Boho's), plus the verse FA had in where Boho left out either verse or paraphrase of verse to fill in storyline. If anyone wants or needs the lyrics to this or Lament For the Hull Trawlers, or Collier Lass (although Susanne Kalwiet of Kiel already has it online from the same album) or Pitmen's Union (I actually posted that last year on another Frankie thread: http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=70303 ) just send a comment to user catamaraner on YouTube and I will get them to you.

To take up where the ellipses started to appear:

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"Aye an' did you have a lodger here last night
drunk till the dawn was beckonin'?
Oh, show us the room where the lodger IS IN,
For we've come to settle his reckoning."

"THERE COME A STRANGER HERE LAST NIGHT,
BUT NOT TO DRINK 'TIL MORNIN'
HE CALLED FOR A PINT AND HE PAID 'ERE HE LEFT,
HE WAS LONG GONE JOHN 'ERE THE DAWNIN'.

THEY STUCK THE FEATHER BEDS AROUND AND ABOUT
THROUGH THE CURTAINS THEIR SWORDS WENT RAKIN'
AND AS THEY RAN IN AND AS THEY RAN OUT,
THEY SAID, "WHAT, BONNIE LASS, ARE YE BAKIN?"

AND One of them being in a very merry mood,
To YOUNG JOHNNY HE fell a-talkin'.
The WOMAN took her foot an' she gae him SUCH a kick
SAYIN' "GIT ON, Annie, with your bakin."

AND AYE AS THE LANDLADY RAN IN AND OUT,
SHE SCOLDED 'TIL THEIR EARS WERE ACHIN'
SHE SAID, "I'VE HAD THIS MERRY YOUNG MAID,
BUT NONE THE LIKES O'YOU WI' THE BAKIN!"

They've TURNED the house up, they've TURNED IT down
WI' THE CROCKERY AND PLATTERS BREAKIN'
And every one of them as HE LEFT THAT INN    [emphasis, poco rit.]
HE kissed the bonnie lass at the baking.

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Always loved that one! For some reason right now, though, "The Barrin' of the Door" is uppermost in my mind. Can't get me hand out o' me hussyfskep :-) Prepping a show, is the problem. It's like an obsession. Don't forget at least one verse of Hal an' Tow tomorrow, all!

Heather P.