MAGGIE MAE       Traditional - Shanty


   G                                C            G
Oh gather round you sailor boys and listen to my song,
                                             D
And when you've heard it through you'll pity me.
  G                        C            G
I was a goddam fool in the Port of Liverpool
                    D                G   C G
The first time that I came home from sea.
      C                           G
I was paid off at the Hove from a trip to Sydney Cove
                                     D
And two pound ten a month was all my pay,
       G                            C
Then I started drinking Gin and was neatly taken in
     D                                  G   C  G
By a little girl they all called Maggie Mae.


Chorus:
    C                             G
Oh, Maggie, Maggie Mae, they have taken you away
                                   D
To slave upon that cold Van Diemen shore:
        G                          C
For you robbed so many Sailors and dosed so many Whalers
       D                               G   C  G
You'll never walk down Lyme Street any more.



'Twas a damned unlucky day when I first met Maggie Mae
She was cruising up and down old Canning Place.
She had a figure fine as a warship of the line,
And me being a sailor, I gave chase.
In the morning when I woke, stiff and sore and stoney broke,
No trousers, coat or weskit could I find.
The landlady said "Sir, I can tell you where they are-
They'll be down at Stanley's Hockshop, number nine!"

Chorus


To the Bobby on his beat at the corner of the street,
To him I went, to him I told my tale.
He asked as if in doubt "Does your Mother know you're out?"
But agreed the lady ought to be in Jail.
To the Hockshop I applied, but no trousers there I spied.
The Bobbies came and took the girl away,
And the jury guilty found her of robbing a 'homward-bounder',
And paid her passage out to Botany Bay!

Chorus