Subject: Lyr Add: LONNIGAN'S WIDOW (Shel Silverstein)
From:
Ted from Australia
Date: 29 Mar 99 - 04:15 AM
LONNIGAN'S WIDOW (Shel Silverstein)
1
Now four jolly troopers from Mansfield town
Set out to hunt the Kelly boys down
They searched through the wombat for most of the week
And they camped on the banks of the Stringybark Creek
(Chorus)
But Lonnigan's widow She's singin' no songs
She walks these red hills and cries all night long
They say that Ned Kelly aint never done wrong
But tell that to Lonnigan's widow
2 Early that mornin' 'midst Laughter and shoutin'
Kennedy and Scanlon they rode off a scoutin'
Left McIntyre to cook up the grub
While Lonnigan sang at the old washin' tub
(Chorus)
3 They were cleanin' the camp and brewin' up tea
When up jumped Ned Kelly with his comrades three
a shout and a cry and a crack of a gun
Lonnigan staggers and Lonnigan's done
(Chorus)
4 He's crawlin' he's cryin' he's clawin' the ground
His voice makes a pleading and pitiful sound
Of the way that he's dyin' nobody will speak
When thy tell of the glories of Stringybark Creek
(Chorus)
5 So sing of Ned Kelly that lad of renown
The pride of Australia the scourge of the Crown
Sing of his bravery and God bless his head
And bury the truth as you bury the dead
(Chorus) x 2
This is the only song that I know of which paints Kelly in a bad light.
He (like Jesse James and some other folk heroes) was in reality a bad ass horse thieving, robbing, murdering bastard. But in the way of these things he became a peoples' hero
From the record produced as a marketing exercise to go with the movie NED KELLY which starred Mick Jagger as Ned. Jagger only sang one song, Wild Colonial Boy(badly) and played tin whistle on the album. All the other songs were written by Silverstein and Christofferson and sung by Christofferson and Waylon Jennings (A bit weird considering the musical talent available at the time in Australia but the use of Jagger, Christofferson and Jennings probably sold more albums in the USA)
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