Australia, (fl. 1953)
The Pig Catcher’s Love Song
- (can be recited, or sung to the tune of On Top of Old Smokey)
- Oh marry me, darling, I love you sincere,
- I love you the way I love Cairns Bitter Beer.
- Chorus:
- Oh Cairns Bitter Beer, love. Oh Cairns Bitter Beer,
- I love you the way I love Cairns Bitter Beer.
- I have an old humpy, a camp oven or two,
- A rifle and pig-dogs; now I only want you.
- Chorus:
- You’ll never go hungry as long as you live,
- With sweet-bucks and mangoes and slabs of wild pig.
- Chorus:
- I’ll always be faithful, and reasonably true,
- I may love other women but I’ll mostly love you.
- Chorus:
- I’ll often get drunken, and sometimes tell lies,
- But I often will tell you how blue are your eyes.
- Chorus:
- Oh, marry me, darling, I never will fail;
- There are worse blokes than me, love, but they’re mostly in gaol.
Bold Tommy Payne
[also: Bold Johnny Crane]
- (can be recited, or sung to the tune of “On Top Of Old Smokey” or “Villikins and his Dinah” or “Sweet Betsy from Pike”)
- I’ll tell you a story it’s sad but it’s true,
- Of the wild pigs where I come from and the damage they do
- There once was a farmer called Bold Tommy Payne,
- Who grew some sweet Pindar and Q 50 cane.
- It was late in the evening an old boar he came,
- And he started a-dining on Bold Tommy’s cane,
- So up stepped Bold Tommy, the fire in his eye,
- He cursed and he swore that the old boar must die.
- He reached for his rifle that stood by the door,
- And he called for his pig dogs and they came by the score.
- Then down to the cane fields, all dressed for the fray,
- In waistcoat and trousers Bold Tom made his way.
- As he stood on the headland and gazed all around
- He heard the cane cracking and he heard a strange sound,
- As the big boar came charging straight for poor Tom,
- The dogs were all barking and the battle was on.
- Up stepped Bold Tommy six feet in the air,
- As he straddled that grunter he heard his pants tear,
- Well, you should have heard the language and the words of Bold Tom,
- When he found to his sorry that his trousers were gone.
- Now out in old Smithfield where the Pindar it grows,
- The folks tell the story and they ought to know.
- How up on Black Mountain that old boar resides,
- And they say that he’s still wearing Bold Tommy’s strides.
Editor’s Note:
In 1953 Jack Crossland, the author of the song and John Crane (Tom Payne in the song) both cane farmers of Smithfield, N. Q. were out hunting wild pigs which come down from the Kuranda ranges and cause extensive damage in the cane fields.
Their pig dogs set up a big black and white boar which came charging down the track towards them. Jack set off smartly for the nearest sapling but John was slower and the boar caught him, tusking him in the groin and tearing his clothes about.
Later on both men saw the humor of the incident and Jack Crossland wrote a song about the incident, “Bold Johnny Crane” which soon became very popular in the district.
About the Poet:
Jack Crossland, Australia, (fl. 1953) was a cane farmer and troubador of considerable fame
in the North Queensland area near Smithfield in 1953 when the events of “Bold Tommy Payne” took place.
Crossland originally wrote his songs for the wassails of the cane-cutters’ barracks with no intention of publication. But when the U.S. singer William Clausen visited Cairns he heard folks singing “Bold Johnny Crane” and put it on his record of Australian songs, Click Go The Shears – Songs Of Australia. Clausen changed the name Johnny Crane to Tommy Payne at the request of the Crane family. Other singers have also recorded more versions of Bold Tommy. [DES-11/17/]
Additional information:
- Tin Shed Singers perform Bold Tommy Payne
- Bold Tommy Payne performed by Seona McDowell from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
- The Pig Catcher’s Love Song performed by Warren Fahey