Unknown
While travelling over the mountain
I heard a maiden cry
There goes old Bill the Bullocky
He's bound for Gundagai
Through eating beef and damper
His shit was stiff with clay
No better man through sand or dirt
Was Bill the Bullocky
With Spark and Charley in the lead
And on the pole old Ball,
Who bent his back, nor cared a damn
If the others pulled at all
It was then that Nobby broke the yoke
Blucher poked out Baldy's eye
And the dog shit in the tucker box
Nine miles from Gundagai.
From Ron Edwards Big Book of Australian Folk Song, with the following note:
Bill the Bullocky was collected from Percy Skinner, Cairns on 6 April, 1965. He was born in Casino, NSW, in 1889 and learned this song in 1905 while working as a bullock driver in the Clarence River area, where he was engaged in hauling out timber.
As I came down Fandango Creek, I heard a maiden cry
ReplyDeleteThere goes old Bill the Bullocky and he's bound for Gundagai
Now a finer poor old bastard ever drug a whip through dust
Nor a finer poor old bastard ever earned an honest crust
Now Bill bogged down on 5 mile creek
He cursed, he swore, he cried
If Nobby don't pull me out of this, I'll tattoo his flaming hide
Now Nobby strained and broke the yoke, poke out the leader's eye
And Bill's dog shat in his tuckerbox on the road to Gundagai.
From Matey Walters, tin miner, Charter's Towers Qld. 1974