There quite a lot of similar songs to the "The Dying Hobo"

In Australia our main version is the "The Dying Stockman" but there are numerous versions of this.

One version collected by A B "Banjo" Paterson" and published in Old Bush Songs. (note collected around the same time as he was meant to be writing "Waltzing Matila") between 1890's to start of the 1900's and published in 1905.

A strapping young stockman lay dying,
His saddle supporting his head;
His two mates around him were crying,
As he rose on his pillow and said:

"Wrap me up with my stockwhip and blanket,
And bury me deep down below,
Where the dingoes and crows can't molest me,
In the shade where the coolibahs grow.
"Oh! had I the flight of the bronzewing,
Far o'er the plains would I fly,
Straight to the land of my childhood,
And there would I lay down and die.

"Then cut down a couple of saplings,
Place one at my head and my toe,
Carve on them cross, stockwhip, and saddle,
To show there's a stockman below.

"Hark! there's the wail of a dingo,
Watchful and weird—I must go,
For it tolls the death-knell of the stockman
From the gloom of the scrub down below.

"There's tea in the battered old billy;
Place the pannikins out in a row,
And we'll drink to the next merry meeting,
In the place where all good fellows go.

"And oft in the shades of the twilight,
When the soft winds are whispering low,
And the dark'ning shadows are falling,
Sometimes think of the stockman below."

Roff Harris had his own version of this in "Tie me Kangaroo Down"

Slim Dusty also had this own version.

All of these can be chased loosly back to "Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket” which is also used for some of the versions.


Bruce D