A few really great songs been mentioned.

Not offering this as the best but it's an interesting one.

The town of Mannim(sp?) reputedly had the highest percentage deaths of any town anywhere which sent men to WW1.

I have't been able to find an author. I believe Martin Wyndham Reed sings it


The Year Of The Drum

Now my name is Jack Gresham, I was brought up in Mannim
That river boat town I loved well
I married Meg Davis we had us two children
One day our family bliss turned to hell
'Twas in 1915 and the year of the drum
The guns and the government called me to come
Past Mannim I look at the tall shining gums
I'm drifting away down the Murray

Now my name is Meg Davis and I work at Shearers
With saddles and waggons and paint
And the men are all fighting, the war it is raging
The women toil here making fuel for the flames
For it's 1916 and the men are all gone
They're fighting in Europe so we carry on
We're keeping the candles lit bright here at home
To light their way back up the Murray

Now my name is Mary and I am an orphan
My father was killed in the war
My ma was Meg Davis, an upstanding lady
She drowned in the Murray the year I turned four
'Twas in 1918 that the telegram came
The death of a soldier it's news did proclaim
My ma lost her footing to the tears and the rain
She slipped on the banks of the Murray

Now my name is Billy and I am a soldier
I just got my orders today
My wife's name is Mary, she's fair as a sunset
I hate to be leaving her lonely this way
But the year's forty two, and the year of the drum
The guns and the government called me to come
Past Mannim I look at the tall shining gums
I'm drifting away down the Murray

But the year doesn't matter, there's always the drum
The guns and the government call men to come
The town still grow strong in her tall shining sons
While her daughter's light lamps by the Murray