The Bullockies' Ball

Trad.



The teams were camped along the gully, soon the news flew round about
Plans were worked out by Pat Skulley, to give the boys a grand blowout
We had an awning of tarpaulin, kegs and casks came quickly rolling
Then the boys and girls came strolling, to have a burst at the Bullockies' Ball.

Chorus
Oh, my hearty, that was a party
Help yourself, free, gratis all
Lots of prog and buckets of grog
To swig away at the Bullockies' Ball

First came Flash Joe, but Jimmy was flasher Hopping Billy the one-eyed boss
Brisbane Sal and the Derwent Slasher Billy the Bull and Paddy the Hoss
Nanny the Rat, the real macassar Brisbane Bess and Mother McCall
All came rolling up together, to have a burst at the Bullockies' Ball

Soon pint pots began to rattle, the cry was "Pass the rum this way!"
The boys began to blow their cattle, and the ladies, of course, must have their say
Sal said she'd take cheek from no man, down to a dish of hash did stoop
She got a smack in the eye with a doughboy, put her sitting in a bucket of soup.

Oh then, boys, there was the ructions, man the tucker and let fly
Brisbane Bess with a hunk of damper caught Flash Joe right in the eye
Nanny the Rat, the real macassar, with a frying pan a dozen slew
He got a clip with a leg of mutton, took a dive in an Irish stew

There was a wallowman Doughy Rolly Foley, said he's put them to the rout
Seized a junk of roly-poly, but a poultice of pigweed stopped his mouth
Now, this raised his old woman's dander, into an awful tanter flew
"Fair play" cried she to a bleedin' overlander, "You pumpkin-peeling,toe rag snob!

Last Chorus
Oh, my hearty, that was a party
Help yourself, free, gratis all
Blackened eyes and broken noses
That wound up the Bullockies' Ball



A parody of Finnegan's Wake with John Wilson from Bath on Greg's Jack Spira guitar. Recorded at the kitchen table at Greg and Lynne Hudson's house in Lawson in the Blue Mountains.

Weevils in the Flour

Words: Dorothy Hewett
Tune: Mark Leydon (1965)





On an island in a river
How that bitter river ran
I grew on scraps of charity
In the best way that you can
On an island in a river
Where I grew to be a man.

Chorus:
For dole bread is bitter bread
Bitter bread and sour.
There's grief in the taste of it
There's weevils in the flour
There's weevils in the flour.

And just across the river
Stood the mighty BHP.
Poured pollution on the water
All the lead of misery
And its smoke was black as hades
Rolling hungry to the sea.
In those humpies by the river
We lived on dole and stew
While just across the water
Those greedy smokestacks grew
And the hunger of the many
Filled the bellies of the few.

On an island in a river
How that bitter river ran
It broke the banks of charity
And baked the bread of man
On that island in a river
Where I grew to be a man.

For dole bread is bitter bread
There's weevils in the flour
But men grow strong as iron upon
That black bread and sour.



I first heard this song being sung by Phil Brown at the New Exchange Hotel in Brisbane in around 1982.

Click Go The Shears

Trad.



Click go the shears boys, click, click, click,
Wide is his blow and his hands move quick,
The ringer looks around and is beaten by a blow,
And curses the old snagger with the bare-bellied joe.

Verse 1
Out on the board the old shearer stands,
Grasping his shears in his thin bony hands
Fixed is his gaze on a bare-bellied yoe,
Glory if he gets her, won't he make the ringer go.

Verse 2
In the middle of the floor in his cane bottomed chair
Sits the boss of the board with his eyes everywhere,
Notes well each fleece as it comes to the screen,
Paying strict attention that it's taken off clean.

Verse 3
The colonial experience man, he is there of course,
With his shiny legging's on, just got off his horse,
Gazes all around him like a real connoisseur,
Scented soap and brilliantine and smelling like a whore.

Verse 4
The tar-boy is there waiting in demand
With his blackened tar-pot in his tarry hand,
Spies one old sheep with a cut upon its back
Hears what he's waiting for it's "Tar here Jack"

Verse 5
Now the shearing is all over, we've all got our cheques,
So roll up your swags and it's off down the trace,
The first pub we come to it's there we'll have a spree,
And everyone that comes along it's 'Have a drink on me.'

Verse 6
There we leave him standing shouting for all hands,
Whilst all around him every 'shouter' stands,
His eye is on the keg which now is lowering fast,
He works hard, he drinks hard, and goes to Hell at last.

The Plains of Emu

("M")

Farewell to my country, my kindred, and my lover
Each morning and evening is sacred to you.
While I toil the long day, without shelter or cover,
And fell the tall gum, the black-butted and blue
Full often I think of and talk of thee, Erin:
Thy heath-covered mountains are fresh in my view.
Thy glens, lakes and rivers, Loch Conn and Kilkerran
While chained to the soil on the Plains of Emu


The iron-bark, wattles, and gum trees extending their shade,
Under which rests the shy kangaroo
Shall be felled by the blest, who have hope o'er them bending
To ease their rude toil, though far exiled from you
But alas, I've not hope, peace or honour to grace me
For each feeling was crushed in the bud as it grew
While "never" is stamped on the chains that embrace me
And ceaseless my thrall on the Plains of Emu


Dearest mother, thy love from my bossom shall never depart
But shall flourish, untainted and true.
For hard was my fate, far from thee to be driven
But force gained the day, and now I suffer for you
Oh, spare her the tear, and no charge lay upon her
And weep not, my Nora, her tears to renew
But cherish her age, until night closes on her
And think of the swain who still thinks but of you.


Our names shall still live, though like writing in water
Confined to the call of the wild cockatoo
As each wattle-scrub echo repeats to the other our names,
Then each breeze will hear me sighing anew.
But dumbed be my tongue if my heart should cease its motion
Or if the isle I forget where my first breath I drew
Each affection is warmed with sincerest devotion
And the tie it is unbroken on the Plains of Emu.


Also know as the Exile's Lament, this recording is from the cloudstreet album, The Fiddleship, recorded by Graham Bradshaw in Coventry in 2004.

The following notes come from the Folk and Traditional Song Lyrics site. The tune I use is my own variation.


These words were published in the Sydney Gazette, 26 May 1829 and
apparently attributed to "M" of Anambaba. The setting is Emu Plains, an
agricultural establishment and convict settlement 57 kilometres west of
Sydney. The apparent author would,be an Irish political convict, perhaps a
rebel of 1798, on lifetime sentence, felling the native timber to clear the
land for farming.

Clancy of the Overflow

Andrew Barton Paterson ('Banjo')




I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just "on spec", addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow".

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city,
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of "The Overflow".



Words by Andrew Barton ("Banjo") Paterson, tune by Wallis and Matilda. Banjo's poem was first published in The Bulletin, an Australian news magazine, on 21 December 1889. You'll find an interesting (if dated) version to a different tune here, sung by John Cameron in 1955.

The Eumerella Shore

Trad.





There's a pretty little valley on the Eumerella shore
Where I've lingered many happy hours away
On my little free selection I have acres by the score
When I unyoke my bullocks from the dray

To my bullocks I will say, "Now, no matter where you stray,
For you'll never be impounded any more,
For you're running, running, running on the duffer's piece of land,
Free selected on the Eumerella shore."

When we find a mob of horses, and the paddock rails are down,
Though before that they were never known to stray,
Oh how quickly we will drive them to some distant inland town
And sell them into slavery far away.

To Jack Robertson we'll say, "You've been leading us astray,
For we'll never go a-farming any more,
For it's cheaper running cattle on the duffer's piece of land
Free selected on the Eumerella shore."


From Ron Edward's Great Australian Folk Songs, taped from the singing of Sam Long (b. 1894) of "The Glue Pot", Wondecla, Queensland, 25 March 1965.

Ron notes that the correct spelling is probably "Umaralla" from the river by that name near Cooma, NSW. There is also a town on that river called Numeralla.

The Razor-Back Mountain

Trad.




Razor-Back Mountain is near Kyogle in the Border Ranges between New South Wales and Queensland.


Notes from Ron Edwards "Great Australian Folk Songs"

"The Razor-Back Mountain" was sent to me by Nancy Keesing on 8 June 1971. She had discovered it in Hill's Life in New South Wales (28 December 1832). It goes to the tune of "The Tight Little Island".