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Crooked Jack

(notation from Dick Gaughan's site)

Music sequenced © by Ron Clarke / 03.2000
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  • Trad ( Words : Dominic Behan / Music : The Star of the County Down )

    Chorus:
    I was tall and true, all of six feet two
    Till they broke me across the back
    By a name I'm known, it's not my own
    They calls me Crooked Jack

    Come Irishmen both brave and strong with adventure in your soul
    There are better ways to spend your days than working down a hole

    The ganger's blue-eyed boy I was, big Jack could do no wrong
    And the reason simply was because I'd work hard hours and long

    I cursed the day I went away to work on the hydro dams
    Your hopes and fears, your sweat and tears bound up in shuttering jamms

    They say this honest toil is good for the spirit and the soul
    But believe me lads it's for sweat and blood they want you down that hole

    As sung by Arthur Johnstone

    Tune The Star of the County Down (Dives and Lazarus)

Susannes Folksong-Notizen

  • [1978:] Written by Dominic Behan, this is very self-explicit. I learned it from Al O'Donnell, a personal hero of mine. (Notes Dick Gaughan, 'Gaughan')

  • [1982:] Dives and Lazarus is one of the oldest folksong tunes, and its life has certainly been varied as well as long. Many will know it as The Star of the County Down [...]. Earlier, it had been used as the setting for a much loved nineteenth-century carol, Come all you worthy Christian men, which included a retelling of the story of the beggar Lazarus from Luke 16. So the tune got its usual name, though it is clearly much older. It is the tune of John Barleycorn, a song of great antiquity.(Pollard, Folksong 31)

  • [1989:] A memorial to all the Irishmen who worked on the roads, railways and hydro dams in Scotland. It was a hard life - some didn't survive and most were old before their time. It always reminds me of someone who was very close to me. (Arthur Johnstone, notes 'North By North')

Quelle: Ireland
Tune: Gilderoy (Scottish, c. 18th c.)

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15.10.1999, aktualisiert am 09.04.2003