by Daniel Kelly – 2023

     G
Once you’d hear my whistle,
     C               G
From way down by the river,
     C                    G
My smoke would fill the valley,
     Am                 D
My steel made tracks to shiver,
           G
I would bring the folks and mail,
           C    D      G
I would carry wool and flour,
           C          G          D
Those days were the height of my power.

     Em
Now I’m rusted to the tracks,
     C          G
I’m not going anywhere,
     C                    G
There for sure are new horizons,
        Am             D
But to travel I don’t care,
     G
No more for me the whistle,
           C               G
Or the screaming of the steel,
     C               G
I’ve forgotten what it is to
     D
really feel.

The tramway it was opened,
Back In eighteen ninety two,
Connecting Yass to Sydney,
And Melbourne city too,
It was supposed to go to Canberra,
But just like now as then,
We are governed by incompetent old men

The kids they climb aboard,
Drive me in their minds,
Stoke the coal fed fire,
Wheels being to grind,
I’m flying down the rails,
Just as I did before,
But in the real world,
I don’t do that any more.

by Daniel Kelly – 2023

     C                 
It seems a simple choice,
          F         G
To give everyone a voice
Am
But maybe there’s more
     F             G
To this than there seems.

When you look at what was done,
With disease, the cross and gun,
There may be reason,
To doubt sincerity.

Is the voice really a ploy,
To share the freedom others enjoy,
On paper, but not
In reality?

           C                G
Give us a voice, An honest voice,
               F           G
A voice with dignity and power,
             F
Not just a voice,
                   G
through which we cower,
               C
We’ll find our voice,

If the things that they decide,
Wash away with every tide,
As the politicians
Nod their heads and sneer,

Like a toddler in the car,
Steering a fake wheel near and far,
This voice is just an
Insult in disguise

It continues 200 hundred years,
Of abuse and fear and tears,
It’s a treaty and the
Truth we really need

When your land you didn’t cede,
To the white conqueror’s greed,
Demand a voice,
That also comes with power

A re-write of the original lyrics to this song by Jack Judge.

Up to dreary London
Came an Irishman one day.
The street were never paved with gold
Despite what people say,
Singing songs of Piccadilly,
The Strand and Leicester Square,
Till Paddy got down hearted,
Then he whispered to them there:

It's a long way to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go.
It's a long way to Tipperary,
To the sweetest girl I know!
Goodbye, Piccadilly,
Farewell, Leicester Square!
It's a long long way to Tipperary,
But my heart's right there.

Paddy he wrote a letter
To his Irish Mary-O,
Saying, "Should you not receive another
Then the foe has laid me low!"
"If I make mistakes in the spelling,
Mary, dear," said he,
"Remember, this isn’t our language,
But the tyrants legacy!"

Mary she wrote a sweet reply
To Irish Paddy-O,
Saying "Father Murphy said a prayer for you
And he wanted you to know
Don’t leave the Strand or Piccadilly
Till you've one a Fenian’s fame,
For love of Ireland sings in my heart
And our sons will know your name!"

By Daniel Kelly – 2023

    G        C        G
You rocket up into the air,
         C            G          D
To the shrieks and gasping for fear,
    Em               G
And then silence will fall,
    D        G
upon one and all,
    C            D        G
As hurtling to earth you appear.

Every time that you fly,
When you open your soul to the sky,
A piece of my heart,
Down here on the ground,
Is withered away when you fly.

Then time stands still in my heart,
In the moment till parachute parts,
And blooms as before,
to float you down to the floor
A master of science and art.

I know that the people will pay,
To see you endangered this way,
But my thoughts they run wild,
For me and our child,
Should fate take you from me today,

By Daniel Kelly – 2022

       G
When you see Ned Kelly’s Armor,
       C                       G
What does it bring to mind?
       C                    G
The murder of Tom Lonigan,
       D
Shot down in his prime?

       C                    G
Did it house a ruthless killer,
Am                   D
A man of hollow fame,
C                    G
Did it house a rebel hero,
       C                          G
Should the nation sing his name,

       C                    G
We still sing of Edward Kelly,
       Am                     D
Though a hundred years has passed,
       C               G
We keep telling his story,
       D                    G
He still calls us from the past.

Now Ned he was a complex boy,
A drunken father’s son,
A copper hurt his sister,
So he went on the run,

Was he really thieving cattle,
Or was that a mistake,
The crime of being an Irishman,
and policemen on the take.

He was shot down in Glenrowan,
In the town his statue stands,
You can see his suit of armour,
on a million trinket brands.

But the thing that I remember,
About our young son Ned,
Is the green sash he was wearing,
As from gunshot wounds he bleed.

by Daniel Kelly - December 2022

     G         C             D           G
In Clonoulty, Tipperary, one cold September night,
     C         G         Am        D
100 local Irishmen did work by candle light,
     G                C            D           G
To destroy Ballagh dispensary, with hammer, axe and saw
     C             G             D           G
In protest of the English Tithe, they did defy the law.

Thirteen men were transported, to Australia they were bound,
In chains of penal servitude, fourteen years to work the ground,
Ned Ryan came to Goulburn, until 1825,
When he got his leave ticket, lucky to be alive,

     D             G             C           G
One day I’ll build a castle, A castle tall and grand,
     C                  G             Am             D
And I’ll own the land for miles around, where my family can stand,
     C                    G            C             G
And they’ll hear the name of Ryan, and our power it will grow,
     C             G             D           G
Fear of English church and Englishmen my kids will never know,

Ned became a squatter, when his freedom it was won,
The family from Ireland, they joined him on the run,
Brothers, Sisters, Cousins, helped the flocks to grow,
With a hundred thousand acres, Ned was the man to know.

Then Ned he build his castle, among the Galong hills,
In stones of hard defiance, a symbol of his will,
Proof that transported Irishmen, still retain their pride,
A piece of Tipperary, just on the other side,

Now Ned’s line it was ended, not long after it began,
But his house became a monastery, for the raising of young men,
To be warriors for Jesus, in the catholic empire,
And he rests beneath the marble, of Rusconi’s ornate spire,

by Daniel Kelly 2022

(Written on the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

    G            D        G
I cannot lead you into battle.
C            D      G
Your laws I do not make
G          D          G
I cannot give you justice
         C            D            G
but something else I hope you’ll take

I gave my heart and my devotion,
To these fine islands of old,
And the people who dwell in them,
The faithful, brave and bold

C                       G
Grief is the price we pay for love.
C                G
Grief is the price we pay.
    C           G     Em
As a queen, I rose above,
                 C        D     G
Grief is the price we pay for love.

To all those who have suffered,
From the violence of our past
I extend my hand in sorrow,
With sympathy at last.

With the benefit of hindsight
we come to see the ways we fall
things we wish we had done better,
or should not have done at all,

Tradition stands behind me,
More than a thousand years
And the true strength of an Empire
Born in fire, blood and tears;

I am pledged unto your service,
My life be short or long,
I shall seek the wining of your trust.
And keep our nation strong.

by Daniel Kelly 2022

Hush little Nav Com, don’t make a beep
Captain’s tired and needs to sleep.
Keep our course, straight and true,
Asteroid fields you steer us through,

Hush little engines, just make a purr,
Fold through space at the speed of a blur,
Reactor metrics stable and tight,
Pushing us past the speed of light.

Hush little filters, scrub and compress,
Keep the air breathable in bunks and mess,
If that warning light comes one,
Oxygen will fail and we’ll all be gone.

Hush little doctor in med bay,
Keep the viruses away,
Find a cure for the alien flu,
Don’t want crewmates turning blue.

Hush little lasers, hold your fire,
Keep your pulse till their shields expire,
If they don’t surrender soon,
You can blast them to the moon.

Hush little cargo in the hold,
Smugglers life is short and bold,
If we make the drop as planned,
I’m gonna buy me a piece of land.

on the passing of Mikhail Gorbachev

by Daniel Kelly 2022

       Am                         Dm
Your father was a Russian, your mother from Ukraine,
      E7                                 Am
You grew up in the peasant life, under Joseph Stalin’s reign,
   Dm                                  Am
Born in the years of famine, followed quickly by the Purge,
            E7              E         Am       E7      Am  E7 Am
Your grandfather told of torture, under the Marxist scourge,

E7            Am          F         E7    Am
You were the man, who let the wall come down,
 Dm                                       Am
Without a drop of blood, you watched it crumble to the ground,
    Dm                              Am
A legacy of peace, born from the violent Stalin clown,
      Am             F    E7    Am
the man who let the wall come down.

In Moscow in the fifties, you met your future wife,
A new member of the party, destined for an easy life,
As long as you kept quiet, and did what you were told,
Reporting on your comrades, whose speech was over bold.

You rose up in the party, an expert in the game,
Until in 1980, to the Politburo you came,
You took the reins of power, in nineteen eighty-five,
And quickly cleared for floor of enemies that were still alive.

The republic it unraveled, and in nineteen eighty nine,
The wall came down in Germany, the end of communisms line,
Yeltsin took the power, and drove it into the wall,
Russia headed to democracy, till Putin took the call.

by Daniel Kelly 2022

G                               C    G
When I open my eyes on the factory floor,
   Am           G                          D
Such a beautiful world, full of life to explore
G                               C    G
My heart grew so full at each child’s embrace,
     G          Bm              D          G
The sparking of love in every new shopper’s face.

G               D    G
I still have hugs to give,
C               G    D
I still have love to live,
G               D          G
Don’t abandon me here in my prime,
     C          D       G
For I can not run from time.

You carried me home, set me up in the room,
Where you declared your love, a heart in full bloom,
The heavens cried beauty when your darling said yes,
And I watched from the floor as she tried on the dress.

But now I sit lonely here in the grass,
Beside the old church, lost in the past,
The rain it falls down, and my seams start to tear,
No place in the world for an oversized bear.

by Daniel Kelly – 2022

           G          D           G
The sheep they graze free on the meadow,
     C                      G
The world turns beyond my command,
          C          D
What could be and has been,
           G    Em
Is shrouded in mystery
     C               D          G
Only known is the place where I stand

           C          D
If I was back in the arms,
          G          C
Of the merchant’s daughter,
C               G          D
Far from the sands and the sea,
Em                D        G               Em
Content with the field, the sun and the water,
     C          D          G
A shepherd’s life is for me

But treasure beyond calls to me,
It haunts the depths of my dreams,
To struggle and strive,
With the base stuff of life,
Until gold in the crucible gleams,

I travel across the Sahara,
Facing thieves and warlords and more,
Caught up in the wind,
Of circular metaphor,
Sand as far as the falcon can soar,

I should have never listened to the Gypsy,
Or taken Melchizedek’s stones,
The gold in my hand,
Turns to ashes,
When I think of my flock and my home.