Mazlin's Mill

Words: Unkown

Tune: Traditional (Freedom's on the Wallaby)

Now I'm a bullock driver and I work for Mazlin's Mill
And pulling timber from Vine Creek I've nearly had my fill
And when the rain it comes at last, the roads they are like glue
It's dig her out, or double-bank to find the balance due

The cutters are no better off, at us they cannot grin
For when they get their timber cut they cannot get it in
And my advice to you my boys, please do not take it ill
Far better turn your bullocks out than work for Mazlin's Mill

Ron Edward's notes:

Mazlin's Mill was collected by John Meredith, and appeared in "Challenge" 10 February, 1954. According to Meredith's correspondent this particular Vine Creek is near Ravenshoe, N.Q., and the song dates from the thirties.

The tune is given as "Freedom on the Wallaby", (better known as "Australia's on the Wallaby").

The four Mazlin brothers were pioneer timbermen in the Atherton area of North Queensland, and the creek that runs through the town of Atherton is named after one of them.

Will Mazlin's timber mill was on Cedar Creek, Ravenshoe, and a recent informant tells me that Will may still be alive. When last heard of he was living in Brisbane. In "Folksongs of Australia" the title is given as MAZLIM"S MILL, but this is an error.

The illustration to this post is a photograph of the Mazlin Creek Bridge, Atherton.

Freedom's On The Wallaby

/>Words: Henry Lawson
Tune: Traditional (At the Close of an Irish Day)



Our fathers toiled for bitter bread while loafers thrived beside them
But food to eat and clothes to wear their native land denied them
And so they left their native land in spite of their devotion
And so they came or if they stole were sent across the ocean

Our fathers toiled to make a home hard grubbing twas and clearing
They wasn't troubled much by lords when they was pioneering
But now that we have made the land a garden full of promise
Old Greed must crook his dirty hand and come and take it from us

So we must fly a rebel flag as others did before us
And we must sing a rebel song and join in rebel chorus
We'll make the tyrants feel the sting of those that they would throttle
They needn't say the fault is ours if blood should stain the wattle

Australia's a big country an' Freedom's humping bluey
An' Freedom's on the Wallaby Oh dont you hear her cooey
She's just begun to boomerang she'll knock the tyrants silly
She's going to light another fire and boil another billy

Once Freedom couldn't stand the glare of Royalty's regalia
She left the loafers where they were and came out to Australia
But now across the mighty main the eagle comes to bind us
We never thought we'd see again the wrongs we left behind us.


An edited version of Henry Lawson's famous commentary on the 1891 shearers' strike, set to a traditional Irish tune, At the Close of an Irish Day.

From the cloudstreet album, Clouds on the Road.