Crooked Jack

by Dominic Behan

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Crooked Jack
 
   56     -6   -6-6     6-6     7        7     -8
Come Irishmen both young and stern
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With adventure in your soul
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There are better ways to spend your days
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Than in working down a hole
 
  8   8      9    8    8       -8  7-8  -8  -8
  I was tall and true, all of 6 foot 2
     7    -8        8      -8    7-66    5     6
  But they broke me across the back
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  By a name I'm known and it's not my own
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  They call me Crooked Jack
 
The ganger's blue-eyed boy was I
Big Jack could do no wrong
And the reason simply was because
I could work hard hours and long
 
I've seen men old before their time
Their faces drawn and gray
I never thought so soon would mine
Be lined the self same way
 
I've cursed the day that I went away
To work on the hydro dams
For sweat and tears or hopes and fears
Bound up in shuttering jams
 
They say that honest toil is good
For the spirit and the soul
But believe me boys it's for sweat and blood
That they want you down a hole
 
recorded by Dick Gaughin