G'day again,

Since the request thread was from Wotcha, - who wasn't in this thread, I will repeat the lyric posting here:

This is the original (published) version from the 1897 Native Companion Songster - a collection of songs gathered by an author and published (a sort of 19th century DT). The lyrics (which have driftyed a little since the first stanza appeared on Dave de Hugard's Travelling Down The Castlereagh LP circa 1968) are:

THE BILLY OF TEA
Anon. (Air@'Bonnie Dundee")

You may talk of your whisky or talk of your beer,
I've something far better awaiting me here;
It stands on that fire beneath the gum-tree,
And you cannot much lick it-a billy of tea.
So fill up your tumbler as high as you can,
You'll never persuade me it's not the best plan,
To let all the beer and the spirits go free
And stick to my darling old Billy of Tea.

I wake in the morning as soon as'tis light,
And go to the nosebag to see it's all right,
That the ants on the sugar no mortgage have got,
And immediately sling my old black billy-pot,
And while it is boiling the horses I seek,
And follow them down perhaps as far as the creek;
I take off the hobbles and let them go free,
And haste to tuck into my Billy of Tea.

And at night when I camp, if the day has been warm,
I give each of the horses their tucker of corn,
From the two in the pole to the one in the lead,
And the billy for each holds a comfortable feed;
Then the fire I start and the water I get,
And the corned beef and damper in order I set,
But I don't touch the grub, though so hungry I be,
I will wait till it's ready-the Billy of Tea.

From The Native Companion Songster.

The tune, Bonnie Dundee is very effective but calls for a good range of voice. The Bushwackers dipped out and used only the first (low) part (as on Dave's short piece, a filler at the end of one side).
I'm sure you will also get the later words - or else I will get around to that version as well.

Regards,

Bob Bolton