Ten Thousand Miles Away
Ten Thousand Miles Away is a sea shanty whose writing and composition are attributed to Joseph B. Geoghegan. Origins and variants. In his "Shanties from the Seven Seas" Hugill says that this was originally a shore ballad sung by street singers in Ireland in the early nineteenth century. Later it became a popular music hall number. "The Scottish Student's Song Book" gives the author as "J. B. Geoghegan". This is Joseph Bryan Geoghegan (c. 1816 – 1889) who was manager of the Star and Museum Music Hall in Bolton, Lancashire The song is numbered 1778 in  the Roud Folk Song Index and it has been passed from singer to singer as a traditional shanty. The figure of "ten thousand miles" could well refer to the distance between England and Australia, and the separation of the lovers arises because the singer's lover has been transported. Several of the variant texts make this possibility more explicit. For example, the lyrics sung by Jon Boden have the lines and the version given by Hugill and that sung by Tommy Makem have very similar lines. The theme song from Australian 1974 hit television series, "Rush", written by George Dreyfuss  and arranged by Brian May has some concurrence with the traditional folk tune. The song was also arranged for a solo melodica and used in the television series SpongeBob SquarePants under the title “Botany Bay” after one variant of the lyrics that mentions Botany Bay extensively. Lyrics. The lyrics as given in "The Scottish Students' Song Book" of 1897 are as follows: "Refrain" "Verse 2" "Verse 3" "Verse 4" "Verse 5"