The Ballad of Mary Read and Anne Bonny
By Steve Parmelee

Mary Read, a pretty girl, made to act a boy,
To keep her grandma’s money she’s a brotherly decoy.
Red-haired Anne she stabbed a girl when she was just 13,
She married Bonny, took his name, but never took his scene.

Mary joined the army as a man and fought a war,
Proved herself in battle, took a husband from the corps.
Anne she left her husband for a pirate of some note,
Who thought himself the toughest man of any man afloat.

Running away in the night;
Looking for something to make it all right.

Mary’s husband breathed no more and so she closed the bar,
She boarded ship and sailed west, she sailed oh so far.
A pirate ship did take them, so she joined up with the crew,
Though she was “he” as far as they or any of them knew.

Bonny found this sailor man was rather to her taste;
So Mary had to prove herself, and rather in some haste.
Then Captain Jack, a jealous man, had made a point to say,
So Mary proved she’s not a man, a second time that day.

Running away in the night;
Looking for something to make it all right.
Freedom under black flags, flying overhead,
Do not let them catch you they will hang you dead.

This pirate ship had its own flag upon a field of black,
A pair of swords below a skull said this is Calico Jack.
“William” was her name and true she sailed upon the seas,
And pirating is what they did while following the breeze.

Anne Bonny had her Captain Jack, and Jack had Bonny too,
Mary wanted her own man, a love that might be true.
A captured lad became that man who might make her his wife,
Although she had to win a duel to save his meager life.

Running away in the night;
Looking for something to make it all right.

Captain Barrett, pirate hunter, hunting Captain Jack,
One morning he did find them, and launch a quick attack.
Jack and crew were quite surprised and hid inside the hold,
While Read and Bonny stood their ground, that’s how the story’s told.

Mary shot below the deck, “Come here! Fight like a man!”
Jack looked up, saw swords and guns, and Mary next to Anne.
But Jack and crew stayed hidden still, and begging for their lives,
The pirate hunters took them all and took their guns and knives.

Running away in the night;
Looking for something to make it all right.
Freedom under black flags, flying overhead,
Do not let them catch you they will hang you dead.

Jamaican court says Jack must hang, for evil pirate ways,
While Read and Bonny plead their bellies for a legal stay.
And Bonny said to Jack that day before he met his God,
“If you had fought more like a man, you’d not hang like a dog.”

Running away in the night;
Looking for something to make it all right.
Freedom under black flags, flying overhead,
Do not let them catch you they will hang you dead.