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TUNE: Nelly Gray NOTE: this song, a parody, appears to be relative of Maggie May SITE SOURCE: Sydney Folklore Project - Section 7: MARITIME Our Dirty Second FloorThere's a low back public at the corner of the StrandWhere I've boozed many happy hours away A-drinking and a-shouting 'To the land! To the land!' Where is hanging out my darling Nelly Gray Oh, my poor Nelly Gray, they have taken you away And you'll never pick no pockets any more. I'm sitting in the gin shop, and I'm lusting all the day, For you're gone from our dirty second floor. When the boys had lit the shops up, And the lamps were shining too, There I took my nimble Nelly Gray And we strolled through Covent Garden Where fine carriages stop up And some go without their purses to the play. One night I went to see her, “but she's gone”, the neighbours say, “Some peelers came and bound her with a chain, They've took her to the lock-up for to wear her life away, For ripping of hokum night and day”. My head is full of liquor, and my nerves they is unstrung And they say, as how, I can't have tick no more My eyes are getting smoky, and I cannot see the way There's a peeler, as I think, I've seen before But my eyes must look about me, or they'll get their governor moving, Hark! There's someone knocking at the door It's then 'ere Angels calling 'is inveigled Nelly Gray As I mentioned, just a little while before Oh my darling Nelly Gray, I'm in the hattie now, I say, I never know'd my spirits any lower They're coming, coming, coming, for to take your Jem away Farewell to our dirty second floor.
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