Somebody requested this song in another thread. Our rendering of the song in the database could use improvement, I think. I found the lyrics below at Digital Muse, a great collection of Australian folk songs.
-Joe Offer-

Click go the Shears

Out on the board the old shearer stands
Grasping his shears in his long bony hands
Fixed is his gaze on a bare-bellied "joe"
Glory if he gets her, won't he make the ringer go

Chorus
Click go the shears boys, click, click, click
Wide is his blow and his hands move quick
The ringer looks around and is beaten by a blow
And curses the old snagger with the blue-bellied "joe"

In the middle of the floor in his cane-bottomed chair
Is the boss of the board, with eyes everywhere
Notes well each fleece as it comes to the screen
Paying strict attention if it's taken off clean

The colonial-experience man he is there, of course
With his shiny leggin's just got off his horse
Casting round his eye like a real connoisseur
Whistling the old tune "I'm the Perfect Lure"

The tar-boy is there awaiting in demand
With his blackened tar-pot and his tarry hand
Sees one old sheep with a cut upon its back
Here's what he's waiting for "Tar here Jack!"

Shearing is all over and we've all got our cheques
Roll up your swag for we're off on the tracks
The first pub we come to it's there we'll have a spree
And everyone that comes along it's, "Come and drink with me!"

Down by the bar the old shearer stands
Grasping his glass in his thin bony hands
Fixed is his gaze on a green-painted keg
Glory he'll get down on it ere he stirs a peg

There we leave him standing, shouting for all hands
Whilst all around him every shouter stands
His eyes are on the cask which is now lowering fast
He works hard he drinks hard and goes to hell at last

You take off the belly-wool clean out the crutch
Go up the neck for the rules they are such
You clean round the horns first shoulder go down
One blow up the back and you then turn around

Click, click, that's how the shears go
Click, click, so awfully quick
You pull out a sheep he'll give a kick
And still hear your shears going click, click, click

---

Notes

First published in the Twentieth Century in 1946 in an article by Percy Jones.

This version from the singing of A.L.Lloyd Printed in Stewart and Keesing's Old Bush Songs with the following note: "From Dr Percy Jones's collection, with one additional stanza, "Now Mister Newchum" etc., collected by John Meredith from Mrs Sloane, of Lithgow, New South Wales. "Mrs Sloane is 60, and learnt most of her songs from her mother in the early part of this century. Mrs Sloane plays button-accordion, fiddle, mouth-organ and jewsharp, and her mother, Mrs Frost, played concertina, accordion and jews-harp." The word "Joe" is presumably a corruption of "Yowe"Ñewe."

Old Bush Songs also prints the following fragment and accompanying note:

THAT'S HOW THE SHEARS GO

You take off the belly-wool clean out the crutch
Go up the neck for the rules they are such
You clean round the horns first shoulder go down
One blow up the back and you then turn around

Click, click, that's how the shears go
Click, click, so awfully quick
You pull out a sheep he'll give a kick
And still hear your shears going click, click, click

Collected by John Meredith, with the note: "Sung by Jack Luscombe of Ryde, aged 81: started picking up at 11, and shearing at 15. Was in the '91 strike at 18. Both songs learned in the 90s."

A.L.Lloyd adds this to his version of the song.

'Click go the Shears' uses the tune and form of the North American song 'Ring the Bell Watchman'

RING THE BELL, WATCHMAN
(Henry Clay Work)

High in the belfry the old sexton stands
Grasping the rope with his thin bony hands
Fix'd is his gaze as by some magic spell
Till he hears the distant murmur: Ring, ring the bell

CHORUS: Ring the bell, watchman! ring! ring! ring!
Yes, yes! the good news is now on the wing.
Yes, yes! they come and with tiding to tell
Glorious and blessed tidings: Ring, ring the bell!

Baring his long silver locks to the breeze
First for a moment he drops on his knees
Then with a vigor that few could excel
Answers he the welcome bidding: Ring, ring the bell

Hear! from the hilltop, the first signal gun
Thunders the word that some great deed is done
Hear! thro' the valley the long echoes swell
Ever and anon repeating: Ring, ring the bell

Bonfires are blazing and rockets ascend
No meagre triumph such tokens portend
Shout! shout! my brothers for "all, all is well!"
'Tis the universal chorus: Ring, ring the bell