Ned Kelly's link with .... Judy Garland?? [Brian Stevenson]

It was the last song Ned Kelly would ever hear as a free man, and the last song Johnny (or Jack) Jones would ever sing. And its performance provided Ned Kelly with the only discernible link to Judy Garland!

In the closing stages of the surreal party held at Ann Jones's Glenrowan Inn, Ned Kelly, weary but perhaps feeling a little relieved in the mistaken belief that the long foreseen armed confrontation was not going to take place, felt like some music, so he asked his 'guests' to sing.

As Ann Jones herself later recalled, one young man sang two songs.

Then Ned looked at Ann and said: 'Are you not going to sing?'

Ann was honest, and said that she could not, but Ned 'said 'Try', and I said I had a little boy who could sing a little but he was delicate, and I called the boy and he sang The Wild Colonial Boy and Colleen das cruitha na mo.'

Ian Jones (no relation to Ann) much later described the song as 'sweet' and 'curiously poignant.' We don't know how well young Jack performed the song, but it mattered little - within hours, the inside of his mother's hotel was hell on earth, and Jack himself would be dead. He died in the Wangaratta Hospital of wounds received in the siege, and, sadly, never got to regale his young schoolmates, or, later on, his workmates in the pub, with the story of how he sang songs for Ned Kelly.

The Wild Colonial Boy is, of course, well known, but what of the other song. Well, it literally translates to The Pretty Maid Milking the Cow, and versions and theories about the song's meaning abound.

On the face of it, the story is pretty simple. A young (presumably) man (presumably) sees an unbelievably beautiful young woman with 'cheeks redder than the rowan trees', a mouth 'sweeter than blackberries' and a 'complexion brighter than new milk.' Unsurprisingly, he falls in love with her and would not swap her company for the High Lordship of Ireland (whatever that is) or a hundred ships, palaces, castles or gold. He won't be happy until he is with her again, and if he is not, his life will be 'Without peace, without merit, without direction' and he will have no rest until he sees her by his side again.

Clearly, she is some chick.

There are many versions of the song, many variations in the wording and the song has multiple meanings. Sometimes the girl is seen as Ireland itself. There is another school of thought that the young man is a priest, who is distracted by her beauty when he is on the way to attend a dying man. But most see it as just a song about a lovely young milkmaid.

There is some discussion of the song's origins and history on the folk and blues website, http://www.mudflat.org/ and innumerable versions, both in the Gaelic that Ned heard, and in English, abound on Youtube. I like the version by Clannad the best, but there are other good ones as well, both instrumental and vocal.

And as for Judy Garland - well, she sang the song in the movie, Little Nelllie Kelly. Although she was quite young at the time, she played the character of both mother and daughter in the movie. It's also the only movie on which Judy died on screen (as the mother, but she came back as the daughter.) In the movie, she sings 'The Pretty Maid Milking the Cow.'

The first two-thirds of it are pretty conventional, and would probably be vaguely commensurate with what Ned heard, had Judy sung it in Gaelic. But for the last part of the song, the tempo lifts, and a big band of the swing era joins in, and Judy alters the lyrics somewhat, including the observation that the impact of the sight of the beautiful girl would not be quite the same had she been milking a goat. Well, yes.

Judy visited Australia on at least one occasion, so she may have heard of Ned, though most likely not of his connection to the song she had performed. We can only wonder what Ned would have thought of Judy's version!

(Note: this blog post is indebted to Val Noone's article 'Dymphna Lonergan rescues Jack Jones' Glenrowan song', Tain August-September 2005. This article features a transcription of the song in Gaelic, as well as the English version.)


.