Hi, Steve.

The following anonymous "Benghazi Ballad" appeared in the anthology "From Oasis into Italy," ed. Victor Selwyn et al. (1983), p. 72:

I will tell you a tale of Benghazi
   Where most of our fighting was done
It was there that a brave British soldier
   Was killed by an I-talian Gun.

As he fell to the floor mortally wounded
   The blood from his wounds did flow red
He raised himself up on his elbow
   And to his comrades around him, he said

'You can bury me out in the desert
   Under the Libyan sun
You can bury me out in the bluey
   For my duty to England is done.'

'My only true love was my mother
   No sweetheart have I ever known
There is no one at home left to mourn me
   I will die as I lived all alone.'


The "bluey" was an established slang term for the desert. A note informs us, "One of many versions, from all ranks, who produced daily variations, sung to a maudlin tune."

"From Oasis into Italy" anthologizes prose and poetry from the British Eighth Army, 1943-46. (An earlier volume, "Return to Oasis" [1980], covers 1940-42.)

Lomax 1938 gives "Bury Me Out on the Prairie" as a gen-u-wine cowboy song. Fascinating to learn that it was composed by Gene Autry!