Jim Jones at Botany Bay

Canadian folksinger Jesse Ferguson performs traditional Australian ballad "Jim Jones at Botany Bay" (Roud 5478). Chords and lyrics below.

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Jim Jones in Botany Bay
(traditional, arrang. J. Ferguson, 2023)

Intro: Am

V1.
C Dm Am
Come listen for a moment, lads, and hear me tell my tale:
F C Am E7
how o'er the seas from England I was condemned to sail.
F C Am
The jury found me guilty, and says the judge, says he:
Dm Am G Am
“For life, Jim Jones, I'm sending you across the rolling sea.

V2.
“And take this tip before you ship to join the iron gang:
Don't try your tricks at Botany Bay or else you'll surely hang.
Or else you'll hang,” he says, says he, “And after that Jim Jones,
it's high upon the gallows tree the crows will pick your bones.

V3.
“You'll have no chance for mischief there, remember what I say:
they'll flog the poaching out of you out there on Botany Bay.”
Let the wind fly up in torrents; let the wind blow up in gales.
I'd rather die in misery than go to New South Wales.

V4.
Well, the sea flew up in torrents, and some pirates came along.
But the soldiers on our convict ship, they were five hundred strong.
They opened fire and somehow drove that pirate ship away;
I'd rather joined that pirate ship than gone to Botany Bay.

V5.
Where day and night our irons clang and like poor galley slaves
we toil and toil and when we die we fill dishonoured graves.
But by and by I'll break my chains and to the bush I'll go.
I'll join the brave bushrangers there, Jack Donahue and Co.

V6.
And one dark night when everything is silent in the town
I'll kill them bastards one by one. I'll shoot the floggers down.
I'll give the law one little shock; remember what I say:
they'll yet regret they've sent Jim Jones in chains to Botany Bay.