Thanks for posting John’s Fitzgerald Inquiry song, Sandra!
Yes, sadly The Bellevue is merely one of MANY heritage buildings throughout Australia, destroyed (IMHO) mostly by greedy Councils and State Govts in the pockets of Developers – and mostly they seem to be replaced by buildings of absolutely ZILCH architectural qualities etc ….. (IMHO, of course!)

Back to the Song Posts :

I think we’re overdue for a WARHORSE, and I don’t think we’ve had this one yet :

THE CONVICT MAID

trad

You lads and lasses all attend to me
While I relate my tale of misery
By hopeless love was I once betrayed
And now I am, alas, a convict maid.

To please my lover did I try full sore
I spent upon him all of my master’s store
Who in his wrath did so loud upbraid
And brought before the judge this convict maid.

The judge his sentence then to me addressed
Which filled with agony my aching breast
To Botany Bay you must be conveyed
For seven long years to be a convict maid.

For seven long years I toiled in pain and grief
And cursed the day that I became a thief
Oh had I stuck by some honest trade
I’d ne’er have been, alas, a convict maid.


This is, I think, the most basic version of the story (it’s the one I remember singing in my youth, anyway!)
In those days it was sung to good effect by Marian Henderson, as in this clip : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbct0Jd5X6g
The tune is also known as “The Croppy Boy” & “McCaffery” and even “Lord Franklin” is related ….

AND THEN THERE’S THIS VERSION :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEE7mQ0fAzQ    by Melbourne trio, “BUSH GOTHIC”

“Bush Gothic wander through the dankest, weirdest corners of the trad song books and emerge as post modern slash anti establishment slash folk feminists. Are they outsiders, lurking on the cultural fringe?
Or have they penetrated to the inner core of Australian identity? BBC Music Magazine gave them FIVE STARS and they are multiple Best Music Award winners at The Adelaide Fringe.”

‘Rising folk stars, inventive and edgy’ - The Guardian

'Extraordinary, even revolutionary. Unforgettable folk.' - The Canberra Times

'Rescues Australian folk from the world of beards and blue jeans.' - The Age

From their website bio.



R-J