Joy Durst dots here

058 - THE GUM-LEAF MUSICIAN, part of a poem by Len Cox, turned into a song by Joy Durst, tune based on "Lord Franklin"

1. No more his music fills the city street,
His gum-leaf music shrill and strange and sweet;
The children loved his gentle face,
An ancient member of an ancient race.

2. We took away his living and his land
And left him with a gum-leaf in his hand,
But with this leaf, in return for wrong,
He made for us his kindly gift of song.

3. He knew our courtrooms and our prisons well,
He died last week within a prison cell,
But sometimes still, in the bustling throng
We'll hear the haunting echo of his song.

4. We'll see again his gentle, wrinkled face
And catch a vision of a brown-skinned race
Who come with eyes that are warm with pride
To stand at last as brothers by our side.

article by Hugh Anderson about Bill Bull, journal article behind a paywall

mudcat - Aussie Gum Leaf Music
from Bob Bolton - (From Australian TRADITION, vol 1, no. 1, March 1964. Published by Victorian Folk Music Club and the Folk Lore Society of Victoria.) (NOTES) GUMLEAF MUSICIAN: To make this song, Joy Durst used part of a poem, of the same name, by Len Fox and set it to the traditional tune Lord Franklin. It refers to Billie Bull, one of the few remaining Aborigines in Victoria, who died in 1954. He used to play the gumleaf in the streets of Melbourne.