I AM A TOLERANT MAN

anon (from WA Goldfields)

I don't mind blokes who digs or stokes,
Who fettle or work on derricks;
I can even stand a German band,
But I draw the line at clerics.

Ch.
Why strike me pink, I'd sooner drink
With a cove sent up for arson,
Than a rain-beseeching, preaching, teaching,
Blanky, cranky, parson.


I snort and jibe at the whole of the tribe,
Whatever their sect of class is -
From lawn-sleeved ranters to kerbstone canters,
From bishops to Army lasses.


Give me the blaspheming, scheming, screaming,
Barracking football garcons -
In preference, to the reverent gents,
The blithering, blathering parsons!


I couldn't get John Thompson's recording to play on his Oz Folksong a Day website, so here is one from "Les Wayfarers" :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTm8_8MvRtc

"Words from John Lahey's Great Australian Folk Songs (1965) via Mudcat, where Bob Bolton notes that it is from the Western Australian goldfields."
Apparently an early poem in the "Kalgoorlie Sun" newspaper; music by John Lahey.




Cheers, R-J