by Daniel Kelly – 2024

About the 22 year old woman murdered in Wee Jasper in 1914.

      Am          G           C     Am
Young Gertrude McAlister, a girl of 22,
      Am          G             Am      G       Am
With years of life before her, so much left to do,
      Am                G           Am                G
Started working as a servant, out on the old Wee Jasper run,
      Am    C             G            Am
But Alexander McBean, he had a wayward son.

      C                 G
Though you escaped the hangman’s rope,
      Am          G
By choosing your own gun,
      G                 Am
There isn’t blood in all the land,
      C     G          Am
To pay for what you’ve done.

Norman he was 35, 13 years older than her,
He forced himself upon the girl, violence, lust and fear,
I doubt he even listened to her lonely broken cries,
The arrogance of privilege, she was chattel in his eyes.  

When Gertrude told him of the consequences of his deed,
In frightened shameful panic, Norman hatched a vile seed,
The girl would have to disappear, or risk the family name,
So he shot her in the kitchen, faked a note to hide the blame,

Then Norman asked the copers, how the hanging it would go,
If they should catch the murderer, what would the inquest show,
When his fate became apparent, he took the cowards path,
And shot himself between the eyes, a week after Gert had breathed her last.

 

Requiem for the Leaning Tree of the Yass River by Daniel Kelly 2022

G            D            G
Sometimes I feel like a tree,
          C           G
Standing down by the river,
    Am         D
So happy and free,
    G            Am
I watch as the water,
  G          Bm C
Drifts slowly by,
G                  Bm
And I drink in the sun,
    D                G
From the blue summer sky,

My roots they reach deep in the soil,
of the river’s broad bank,
Where the platypus toils,
In times of the drought,
There is always a drink,
From the free flowing river,
Where I stand on the brink.

C                         G
I’m leaning out into the river,
C            D            G
I lean a bit more every year,
C                     D
When the flood water comes,
             G
down the next time,
    C            D        G
I fear, I’ll no longer be here,

I’m not old like the elm in the park,
Not exotic at all,
With plain sliver bark,
Eucalyptus, like me,
Dime a dozen you see,
But I cherish my spot,
While my roots will hold me,

The river has risen once more,
The torrent comes down,
Higher than ever before,
My roots cannot hold me,
I’m starting to fall,
But let me lie in the water,
Where I once stood so tall,