source:
1949 issue of the Maritime Worker
Tune: The Man on the Flying Trapeze
SITE SOURCE: SYDNEY FOLKLORE - SECTION 2: Labour History
The Screw and The Keys
Once I was happy and now I'm forlorn,
Just like a coat that's tattered and torn,
They caught me and tried me and put me in gaol.
Alas and alack and alay,
They sent me out to Long Bay,
And fed me on hominy�mush.
chorus
He walks round the gaol with the greatest of ease,
The dashing young screw with the big bunch of keys,
He watches and guards me and won't let me be,
And my joy he has taken away.
I was tried by a Judge for cashing a cheque,
He sought by this method the miners to break.
He put me in gaol for the mine owners' sake,
And now I'm in cell number seventeen
Out in the gaol near Long Bay,
Feedin' on hom-in-y�mush.
They gave me a hat and grey prison suit,
A shirt and a singlet and a big pair of boots,
And since I've been here my name they have took
And now I'm number one-twenty-eight,
Out in that gaol at Long Bay,
Feedin' on hom-in-y�mush.
