Lyr Req: Bushranger Jack Power

Subject: Lyr Req: Bushranger Jack Power
From: GUEST,kirstylaw
Date: 28 May 11 - 10:04 AM

Hi all - I was wonering if anyone has the text for this song? I have found a recording of it but cant find the words and there's a few - esp of place names that I can't make out from the recording.

Much appreciated, all the best
Kirsty

Subject: Lyr Add: BUSHRANGER JACK POWER
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 May 11 - 12:29 PM

from Warren Fahey's website -

Bushranger Jack Power

SOURCE: photocopy held by the Melbourne Argus, dated 19th August 1950
TUNE: Erin Go Bragh

Site Source: Section 5. Crime and Corruption


BUSHRANGER JACK POWER

On the 8th day of May, in the year 69
On a lovely spring morning, the weather 'being fine
A bolter from Pentridge, Jack Power by name
An aspirant for the gallows to Beechworth he came

Well armed, well mounted, the troops for his foes
To a scrub for concealment the highway man goes
From Beechworth to the Buckland and on the highway
Run Cobb & Co coaches by night & by day

Early one morning the outlaw approach'd
Towards Bowman's forest and he held up a coach
He held up two draymen and a new saddle stole
And a horse, and coach wheeler, it's true bless me soul

He met with a trooper near the small town of Yea
Good morning Sir Trooper my orders obey
Hand here that revolver or if you refuse
You must fight or deliver - pray which do you choose?

The trooper surrender'd his horse and his arms
Then hasten'd to Yea town to give the alarm
"Farewell "shouts the rover "This revolver's my sheild
To the traps or the gallows I never will yield."

We may sing of young Gilbert, Dan Morgan, Ben Hall
But the bold reckless robber surpasses them all
The pluck that is in him is beyond all belief
A daring young highwayman, a professional thief.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bushranger Jack Power
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jun 11 - 10:01 AM

thanks Sandra in Sydney - much appreciated.

kirsty

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bushranger Jack Power
From: cloudstreet
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 08:52 AM

Here's the text from the Melbourne Argus under the heading, Clive Turnbull Says:

A song from
wilder days
VOU may remember that
a few months ago we had
quite a correspondence about
the old song, "The Wild Colon-
ial Boy."
Miss Elsie Heath of Gras-
mere, Sheep Hills, whose father
was one of the pioneers of the
Wimmera when it was thrown
open for selection, writes that
she has vivid recollections of
the song as her father sang it
to the children sitting 'round
the fire on cold wintry nights
- it varies slightly from the
versions already published.
Better still, Miss Heath tells
me that her mother, not long
ago, found in her own mother's
work box a cbpy of the song
"Bushranger Jack Power."
It is written- on blue lined
foolscap, still readable though
worn, in a fine hand, and, Miss
Heath suggests, is probably 80
years old. The signature, pre-
sumably of the writer, is Isaac
Hall.

The lyric follows.

John