G'day again,

Celtaddict: "When you're stony broke and walking" - that was another snippet I associate with Graham Seal, back in his Steam Shuttle days. I'm afraid Graham couldn't remember a source, or more details ... and a query in The Australian Journal of Folklore didn't get any joy, either (but it is still nagging away, in far recess of my brain ...).

Interestingly, Take Me Down to the Harbour came up in my reply to a local researcher looking for musical material to accompany a ferry trip round Sydney Harbour ... with appropriate 'sound bites' to illuminate the historical points. Ina Popplewell's version was her memory of the song that was printed in a Sydney songster in the first decade of last century.

With its references to cars and 'phones, it would have been terribly modern ... and probably came from a local music hall performer. The lines you quote, however, are from a "reconstruction" (well, extra verses made up to make the song longer ... ) by a Canberra-based group: "Skedaddle".

Q: Oops! I, my haste, I picked up line 4 and repeated it as line 12 ... missing the rather neat little change at the end. Thanks for the correction. The ending in all three references, as well as The Penguin Australian Song Book, Compiled by J.S. Manifold, Penguin Books Ltd, 1964) is as you give.

Regards,

Bob

Corrected text:
HUMPING OLD BLUEY
(From Ron Mantan, Erskineville, NSW, Australia)

Humping old bluey; it is a stale game,
And that I can plainly see.
You're battling with poverty, hunger, sharp thorn,
Things are just going middling with me.

Now shearing's all over, and I'm such a swell ...
I'm riding a very fine hack.
If my friends were to see me - I'm not humping bluey,
I'm pushing a bit further back.

Humping your drum, and that after rum -
Wasting your young life away;
You're battling with poverty, hunger, sharp thorn,
Things are just going middling, I say.

Regards,

Bob