MOUNT OUSLEY BREAKDOWN
(Robin Connaughton)

I drove from Austral’s in my little Commer knocker
Two coils of reject copper going back to ERS
She was slightly overloaded and the brakes needed relining
But I didn’t think it mattered, only one trip more or less
I detoured through the suburbs, missed the mermaids down at Sutherland
Hammered on past Helensburgh, then out through Maddens plains
Screaming sixty down the hills, like the one past Appin turn-off
And chugging back to twenty going up the slope again

Chorus:
Nearer my God, nearer my God, nearer my God to thee
I was going down Mount Ousley doing eighty miles an hour
Singing, ’Nearer my God to thee’

I changed to third at Ousley, but when I went in for second
The preselector gearbox locked out any cog but top
I pulled left and hit the anchors, but the front brakes stripped their linings
Four miles of hill, ten tons of coil, no bloody way to stop
I scraped the kink at fifty, missed the safety ramp at sixty
The Commer’s engine knocking like a demolition drill
Then it’s through the shute and down the straight, there’s nothing left but houses
And the traffic light T-junction at the bottom of the hill

Chorus

You can lose speed through the cutting if you scape the truck against the side
They’ve never bloody tried it doing eighty miles an hour
You hit the edge too hard, the load just keeps on going
Ten tons of copper coil would press me flatter than a flower
I went through the intersection like an angel with its arse on fire
Cannoned off a Morris and a Holden lost its back
When the front wheels hit the gutter, the cabin left the chassis
I could hear the chain links breaking as the coils took up the slack

Chorus

Suddenly it’s silent, I am sitting in a paddock
Crying like a baby, ‘cos I’m still alive to cry
Sitting in the wreckage of the cabin of me Commer
Between two copper carpets, stretching pink towards the sky
And thanking God almighty for that canny little loader
Who’d chocked the coils off-centre when he’d chained them down, you see
So that when I hit the gutter and the coils came smashing forwards
Well, one went right and one went left and both of them missed me

Chorus (x2)

From The Roaring Forties 'We Made the Steel'. The tune is 'Wreck of the Old '97'.

Mt Ousley descent

--Stewie.