I went broke in western Queensland in Nineteen Thirty One Nobody would employ me and my swag carrying days begun I started out through Charleville and all the western towns I was on me way to Roma destination Darling Downs Me pants was getting ragged and me boots was a-getting thin And as I came into Mitchell the goods train shunted in I could hear her whistle blowing it was mighty plain to see She was on her way to Roma or so it seemed to me
Chorus: I wish I was about twenty stone and only seven feet tall I’d go back to western Queensland and beat up Sergeant Small
Traditional arranged by Andy Irvine; “Sergeant Small” is an Australian song which tells the story of an unemployed man who rides freight trains in his search for work during the Great Depression in the 1930s but gets trapped by Sergeant Small, a policeman masquerading as a hobo.
This song is an amalgamation from two sources put together by Brad Tate: the recording made by Tex Morton in the 1940s and the poem written by Terry Boylan in the 1970s. Irvine first heard it sung by Seamus Gill of Canberra, a Donegal man who has lived most of his life in Australia.