949. The Streets of Forbes (Traditional Australian)

This is one of a number of songs written about the Australian bushranger, Ben Hall, who was born in northern New South Wales in 1837 to ex-convict parents. He supposedly became an outlaw only after being unjustly imprisoned, and is generally viewed as an Australian version of Robin Hood. He was arrested twice for giving assistance to the notorious bushranger, Frank Gardiner, but was acquitted. After a marriage break-up he took over the gang Gardiner left behind when he fled to Queensland. In October, 1863, a member of his gang, Bourke, who was only 17 when he joined the gang, was killed during an atttack on the house of Henry Knightly, a gold warden and police magistrate, and then in November, another member, O'Meally, was shot dead by David Henry Campbell, whose homestead they attacked. Another member, Vane, was so upset that he gave himself up to a Catholic priest and was sentenced to fifteen years. The other member, Gilbert, left for a while but was back with Hall the following year with a new member, John Dunn. They held up travellers on the road between Sydney and Melbourne. The New South Wales Government, angry at the failure of the police to capture the three outlaws, passed an act allowing them to be shot on sight if they refused to surrender. The police surrounded Hall near Forbes, on the Lachlan River, and killed him. He was 28 years old and was not known to have killed any of his victims. Gilbert was shot in 1865 at the home of John Dunn's grandfather. Dunn escaped, but was caught and hanged in 1866.

Billy Dargin was an Aboriginal tracker who worked with the police. He was poisoned some years later, supposedly by friends of Ben Hall.

The lyrics, and possibly the melody, of this song were written by Hall's brother-in-law, who saw his body dragged through the town.

By the way, a "prad" just means a horse.

You can see a playlist of my Australian songs here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0DE11C284435E7A2

And for a playlist of all my a capella songs:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E81659B9EA983BB2

For lyrics and chords, see my website: http://www.raymondcrooke.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• folk
• song
• ben
• hall
• bushranger
• outlaw
• highwayman
• lachlan

[CurtisMateer]

At the risk of committing a crime at saying this, why is it that Australians hero worship these murderers?

An interesting song Raymond with a fine tune too.

[raymondcrooke]

Well, maybe our convict origins have something to do with it. But really it's not just an Australian phenomenon. Look at Robin Hood, Dick Turpin, Jesse James, etc.

Actually, Ben Hall is not known to have murdered anybody - unlike Jack Donahue and Ned Kelly who never deserved their hero status.

[mktmic7]

nice one********

[raymondcrooke]

Thanks again, Mike.

[helveticaukes]

I do enjoy a good storytelling traditional tune, thank you for sharing this one! Thank you also for providing a very detailed background of the song--it's always interesting to know the background of these songs.

[raymondcrooke]

Thanks for showing your appreciation.

[CurtisMateer]

Fair enough then.

[raymondcrooke]

Glad you liked it, Dan. There are a lot of Australian folk songs that deserve to be better known.

[raymondcrooke]

Not very well known these days, even in Australia. I thought it was time to put up one of the more obscure songs after the last few very popular ones.

[banjodano]

Excellent song raymond, since ive heard you singing these Traditional Australian songs ive began to take a liking to them,

thanks