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ISLAND IN THE RIVER
(Dorothy Hewitt) There's an Island in the River, how that bitter river ran
Where I grew on scraps of charity in the best way that you can
On an Island in a River, where I grew to be a man
Chorus:
For dole bread is a bitter bread, bitter bread and sour
There's grief in the taste of it, there's weevils in the flour
There's weevils in the flour
And just beside that river stood the mighty B.H.P.
Poured pollution in the water, like the bread of misery
And its coat was black as Hades, rolling hungry to the sea
Chorus
In those humpies by the river where we lived on dole and stew(?)
While just across the river the mighty smoke-stacks grew
Where the hunger of the many filled the bellies of the few
Chorus
There's an Island in the River, how that bitter river ran
It broke the banks of charity and it baked a bread of man
On that Island in the River where I grew to be a man
Last chorus only:
For dole bread is a bitter bread, bitter bread and sour
But men grew hard as iron upon that bitter bread and sour
That bitter bread and sour
Background: the island referred to in this song was an island in the middle of a river in Newcastle in New South Wales in Australia. A few aborigines lived on this island in the condition of squalor and poverty. And this condition was made even more ironical by the fact that opposite the island on the bank of the river was a great steel-making factory of B.H.P. Ltd, the mightiest industrial giant of Australia. So while the Aborigines starved on their Island, they could see the white man's factory, built on their tribal lands, making money for those who already had enough, and polluting the environment more in one hour than their people had in all their ten thousand year of history. Eric Bogle.
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Sung by Eric Bogle on 'Down Under' (1981)
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Submitted by EB
I've collected most of the lyrics I've posted here during the past months.
These lyrics, along with the .RA audioclips, are available at
http://geocities.com/Nashville/Opry/7424
Ezio
sj