The Black Velvet Band by Mbo
(Words by Mbo, Tune - Traditional)

Chorus:

Oh her eyes they shone like the diamonds
You’d think she was queen o’ the land
And her hair hung over her shoulders
Tied up with a black velvet band

In a fair little city called Belfast
I found myself wand’ring around
An out-of-work young good-for-nothing
Looking for trade in the town.
But I had not the brains or the training
A high-paying job for to land
And I couldn’t foretell all the trouble
That’d spring from a black velvet band.

So one evening late as I rambled
Through Belfast’s less-prosperous hub,
I met with a girl angel-beautiful
Serving whisky and ale in a pub.
I told her right there I adored her
Oh, she held my heart in her hand
And she kissed me with lips red as roses
I was gone for the black velvet band.

I said we could leave there together
And be married by Father Jerome,
But she told me her thousand-pound fortune was locked
In a safe in her grandfather’s house.
First we’d get it, and then we’d be married
With money more than we could stand;
I couldn’t have known the misfortune that’d come
So I followed the black velvet band.

When we arrived at her granddad’s house
It was locked and unlighted within;
She said he was on a trip to Cork
So she picked the door lock with a pin.
She managed to get the safe open;
We were leaving with money in hand
But an army of peelers arrested us
Bad luck to the black velvet band.

The judge said "We finally caught you, girl!
And your new accomplice friend.
You’ve robbed twelve other fine Belfast homes,
And it’s here that your thieving will end.
I’m convicting you both in this matter
You’re sailing for Van Dieman’s Land
You can live out your best years together
This boy and the black velvet band."

So come all you jolly young fellows
Please take of this warning from me:
Whenever you’re up around Belfast-town
Beware of those pretty colleens.
For here we are in Australia
Plowing the bush and the sand;
And the tie that binds us together
Is the knot in her black velvet band.

Matthew Richards (1999)

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