George Joseph Smith

A mad song about the maddest criminal ever to appear before an English court. Wordsworth wrote Daffodils, Coleridge wrote The Ancient Mariner, Joyce wrote Ulysses and I wrote this song.  Easily my most memorable and most requested song.  Artists ranging from Punk bands to my hero the folksinger Derek Brimstone have had a shot  at singing this,   John Mortimer selected it to appear in The Oxford Book of Villains – but it remains doggedly my own creation.

During 2004, I bought a Line 6 guitar and tried to record a sampler of my work.  There were two decent trax from the whole morning session.  This is my favourite recording of a song that has been stubbornly difficult to capture on tape.

There is nothing remotely funny about GJS’s crimes.  But that a fellow member of our species could choose to think that he had hit upon a good wheeze in this manner, should give us all pause for thought.