HERE'S TO YOU FRANKLN. © Dave de Hugard 1983

Audio

    Well come all you people far and near
    And to this story lend an ear
    It's to ask you all to make a stand
    On a crucial issue now at hand
    At the Franklin River a fight's being fought
    And bulldozers roar and time it's short
    So this is a call for your support
    To keep the Franklin Flowing

    Chorus
    Here's to you Franklin as you roll along
    And your forests and your mountains is a wild river song
    And may you still be there when we're long gone
    So Franklin you keep on flowing

    Now this HEC well they're blind of course
    And they're wearing blinkers like an old draft horse
    Oh but puffed with power too blind to see
    The extent of their stupidity
    And if you've got your doubts the fact remains
    It's up to us to make the change
    So it's backs to the wheel for the long term gains
    And we'll keep the Franklin Flowing

    We must stay the hand of this scheming pack
    They'd carve up this country at the drop of a hat
    Oh Lake Pedder disappeared at the stroke of a pen
    And if they have their way they'll do it again
    They'll take the Franklin River too
    Except for people like me and you
    So I reckon we can see this through
    And keep the Franklin Flowing

    And I like the cackle of the kookaburra's song
    And the bubble of the of the water as she rolls along
    And the Huon pines have been standing there
    Two thousand years and never a care
    Then there's the caves where the earliest men
    Sheltered while this river ran
    Oh there'e no place here for a hydro dam
    So keep the Franklin Flowing

    Final Chorus
    Here's to you Franklin as you roll along
    And your forests and your mountains is a wild river song
    And may you still be there when we're long gone
    So Franklin you keep on flowing
    So Franklin just keep on flowing

    Notes

    Many thanks to Dave de Hugard for permission to add this song to the Union Songs collection.

    'Here's to you Franklin' was written in 1983, part of the national protest against the Hydro Electricity Commission's (HEC) plan to build a dam on the Franklin River in Tasmania's wild south-west.

    Visit Dave's website at http://www.dehugard.com/