Bulls of the Speewah

Words: R C Pearce (Bob Bloodwood)
Tune: Unknown



Oh all this talk of the Dawson scrub it fairly leaves me cold
For I tell you them bulls was dinkum cows in the Speewah days of old
More fiercer than the fiercest cat more cunning than the Blacks
I've known them tie branches to their tails to cover up their tracks

When leaving camp you must put out the fires you had last night
For them bulls carry firesticks in their teeth to set your yards alight
They have the bower-birds squared to bellow to put you off your course
They even have the dingoes trained to heel your bloody horse

I remember one day there was six of us to muster to Jackass yard
No finer stockmen in the land and used to riding hard
The boss was up on a raking bay called Casanover's Desire
And I kidded myself that I looked at home on a horse called Black Maria

We sighted a score or more of bulls contented as you please
Some was sharpening their horns on the sandstone rocks and some was skewering trees
Well we made them flaming cattle run as hard as they could lick
But every time I looked behind they seemed to be gaining quick

There was one roan bull about a yard behind bowled over my mare and me
So to to see if me comrades was alright I climbed the nearest tree
Well I'm up here and he's down there as if he'd like to stay
But seeing I've no further use for him I let him drift away

Then down I come and grab my mare (her feet's caught in the rein)
For I'm as keen as mustard now to help my mates again
They was heading straight for the Jackass yard it was clear the way they went
They'd torn big trees up by the roots and even the hills looked bent

When I come in sight of the that there yard I sat there goggle-eyed
For the bulls was camped outside the gate and the stockmen was inside
So when I hear talk of the Dawson days my mind goes back to when
Them wild bulls of the Speewah scrub used to muster up the men


Lyrics and notes from Mark Gregory's Australian Folk Song site via Mudcat:

From the poem Bulls of Speewah by R.C.Pierce (Bob Bloodwood) This version as sung by A.L.Lloyd in a concert at the Singers Club in London 1973. Chris Kempster transcribed the tune for this collection from a tape recording made of the concert by Mark Gregory.


I've been unable to source the tune. The above note suggests that it was either collected or written by AL Lloyd.

RC Pearce published many poems in his Smoko Time column in the North Queensland Register.

The Station Cook

Words: Traditional
Tune: Traditional (Musselburgh Fair)



The song I'm going to sing to you will not detain you long
It's all about a station cook we had at old Pinyong
His pastry was so beautiful his cooking was so fine
It gave us all a stomach-ache right through the shearing-time

Oh you should see his plum-duffs his doughboys and his pies
I swear by Long Maloney they'd open a shearer's eyes
He'd say take your time, good fellows and he'd fix us with a glance
Saying I'll dish you up much better if you'll give me half a chance

Oh you should see his doughboys his dumplings and his pies
The thought of such luxuries would open a shearer's eyes
He gets up in the morning gives us plenty of stewed tea
And don't forget when shearing's done to sling the cook his fee

But oh dear! I feel so queer I don't know what to do
The thought of leaving Fowler's Bay just breaks my heart in two
But if ever I catch that slushy I'll make him rue the day
That he ruined my constitution while shearing at Fowler's Bay.



Lyrics from Mark Gregory's Australian Folk Songs site.

Ron Edwards has the following note:

The Station Cook comes from the collection of Dr Percy Jones. According to English folklorist A.L. Lloyd it is sung to the Scottish melody "Musselburgh Fair".

The same tune is used for Lachlan Tigers.


The illustration to this post is a photograph entitled, A Station Cook, by Arthur Groom, held in his collection by the National Library of Australia.

The Cockies of Bungaree

Unknown



Come all you weary travellers that's out of work just mind,
You take a trip to Bungaree and plenty there you'll find.
Have a trial with the cockies, you can take it straight from me,
I'm very sure you'll rue the day you first saw Bungaree.

Well how I come this weary way I mean to let you know,
Being out of employment I didn't know where to go.
So I went to the registry office and there I did agree
To take a job of clearing for a cocky in Bungaree.

His homestead was of surface mud, the roof of mouldy thatch,
The doors and windows hung by a nail with never a bolt or catch.
The chickens laid eggs on the table such a sight you never did see,
One laid an egg in the old tin plate of the cocky of Bungaree.

Well, it's early the very next morning, it was the usual go.
He rattled a plate for breakfast before the sun did show.
The stars were shining glorious and the moon was high, you see,
I thought before the sun would rise I'd die in Bungaree.

By the time I come into supper, it was just on half past nine
And when I had it eat I reckon it was my bedtime.
But the cocky he come over to me and he says with a merry laugh,
I want you now for an hour or two to cut a bail of chaff.

Well, when the work was over, I had to nurse the youngest child,
Whenever I cracked a bit of a joke the missus she would smile.
The old feller he got jealous, looked like he'd murder me
And there he sat and whipped the cat, the cocky in Bungaree.

Well, when I'd done my first week's work I reckoned I'd had enough,
I went up to that cocky and asked him for me stuff.
I came down into Ballarat and it didn't take me long
I went straight into Sayer's Hotel and blued me one pound one.

So now me job is over and I'm at liberty,
I'll never forget the day I met that cocky in Bungaree.


From AL Lloyd's Outback Ballads (1960).

Bluey Brink

Unknown



There once was a shearer by name Bluey Brink
A devil for work and a devil for drink
He could shear his two hundred a day without fear
And drink without winking four gallon of beer

Now Jimmy the barman who served out the drink
He hated the sight of this here Bluey Brink
Who stayed much too late and who come much too soon
At evening, at mornin, at night and at noon

One morning as Jimmy was cleaning the bar
With sulphuric acid he kept in a jar
Old Bluey came yelling and bawling with thirst
Whatever you've got Jim just hand me the first

Now it aint in the history, it ain't put in print
But Bluey drunk acid with never a wink
Saying that's the stuff Jimmy, well strike me stone dead
This'll make me the ringer of Stephenson's shed

Now all that long day as he served out the beer
Poor Jimmy was sick with his trouble and fear
Too worried to argue too worried to fight
Seeing the shearer a corpse in his fright

Now early next morning, he opened the door
And along come the shearer, asking for more
With his eyebrows all singed and his whiskers deranged
And holes in hide hide like a dog with the mange.

Says Jimmy and how did you find the new stuff?
Says Bluey it's fine but I've not had enough
It gives me great courage to shear and to fight
But why does that stuff set me whiskers alight?

I thought I knew drink, but I must have been wrong
For what you just give me was proper and strong
It set me to coughing and you know I'm no liar
But every cough set me whiskers on fire


Another collected by AL Lloyd, this time from Across the Western Plains (1958).

The Maryborough Miner

Come all you sons of liberty and listen to me song:
I'll tell you me observations and it won't take very long.
I've fossicked around this continent five thousand miles or more
And many's the time I might have starved but for the cheek I bore.

I've been on all the diggings, boys, from famous Ballarat,
I've long-tommed on the Lachlan and I've fossicked Lambing Flat.
So you can understand, me boys, just from my little rhyme,
I'm a Maryborough miner and I'm one of the good old time.

I came to the Fitzroy River all with me Bendigo rig;
I had a shovel, a pick, and a pan, and for a licence I begged.
But the assay man called me a loafer, said for work I'd no desire,
And so to do him justice, boys, I set his office on fire.

Oh yes, my jolly jokers, I've done it on the cross,
Although I carry me bluey now, I've sweated many a horse.
I've helped to rob the escort of many an ounce of gold
And the traps have trailed upon my tail more times than I've ever told.

Oh yes, the traps have trailed me and been frightened out of their stripes;
They never could have caught me for they feared me cure for gripes.
And well they knew I carried it for they had often seen it
Glistening in me flipper chaps, me patent pill machine.

I'm one of the men who cradled on the reef at Tarrangower,
Anxiety and misery me grim companions there.
I puddled the clay at Bendigo and I chanced me arm at Kew,
And I wound up my avocation with ten years on Cockatoo.

I've been on all the diggings, boys, from famous Ballarat,
I've long-tommed on the Lachlan and I've fossicked Lambing Flat.
So you may understand, my boys, just from this little rhyme,
I'm a Maryborough miner and I'm one of the good old time.


From AL Lloyd's 1956 Australian Bush Songs album.

These sleeve notes are from his second recording of the song on his 1958 release, Across the Western Plains:

The great gold rushes which began in the 1850's developed a self-reliant class of men. Among the most admirable were the men who raised the flag of stars at Eureka Stockade in 1854 against oppressive authority. Among the least admirable were those who were prepared to get their gold at the point of a pistol, if they couldn't get it by the point of a pick. But often it was hard to tell the best from the worst among the diggers, as with the genial old rascal of this song. Of the Victorian township of Maryborough, Mark Twain said it was a “railway station with a town attached.” The people of Maryborough replied: “Even Mark Twain has to pay tribute to our impressive railway station.” (Some say that the railways people got their plans mixed, and that the station they built at Maryborough had been designed for the centre of Melbourne.)

The Shearer's Dream

Words: Trad (?)
Music: AL Lloyd





O I dreamt I shore in a shearing shed and it was a dream of joy
For every one of the rouseabouts was a girl dressed up as a boy
Dressed up like a page in a pantomime the prettiest ever seen
They had flaxen hair they had coal black hair and every shade between

CHORUS:
There was short plump girls there was tall slim girls and the handsomest ever seen
They was four foot five they was six foot high and every shade between

The shed was cooled by electric fans that was over every shoot
The pens was of polished mahogany and everything else to suit
The huts had springs to the mattresses and the tucker was simply grand
And every night by the billabong we danced to a German band

Our pay was the wool on the jumbucks' backs so we shore till all was blue
The sheep was washed afore they was shore and the rams were scented too
And we all of us cried when the shed cut out in spite of the long hot days
For every hour them girls waltzed in with whisky and beer on trays

There was three of them girls to every chap and as jealous as they could be
There was three of them girls to every chap and six of them picked on me
We was drafting them out for the homeward track and sharing them round like steam
When I woke with my head in the blazing sun to find it a shearer's dream




From the "Old Bush Songs" album. (This link has some brief biographical notes on AL Lloyd as well).

The origins of this one are a little uncertain. This note is from the Mainly Norfolk site:

This song was first published in Children of the Bush in 1902. It is usually attributed to Henry Lawson and appears in most collections of the poet, however when John Meredith collected a version from Charles Ayger in 1957, he claimed to have heard it at school when Lawson would have been about nineteen. The tune is from A.L. Lloyd, who based it on The Girl I Left Behind.