G'day again,

OK, on second reading (and not a little excavating back down to deep distant levels of what used to be my memory) I accept that the extra verse may have come from an extended version that I might have heard back in the 1950s, when PwnB was on the hit parades. There were plenty of parodies about then ... some of them were almost clean enough for mixed company ... and some of them were most definitely not!

Singabout - Journal of Australian Folksong, the Bush Music Club magazine of the 1950s/60s caused a stir in those straitlaced days by printing one called The Pub with no Dyke (which, back in thos different days, meant that it had not been provided with toilet facilities). Correspondence on the matter ranged as far afield as a defence by Pete Seeger.

Anyway, this is the text of the original poem, from Singabout Vol. 4, Number 1, 1960 (also on p. 66 of Singabout - Selected Reprints, ed. Bob Bolton, Bush Music Club, Sydney, 1985. (The reference to Bold Tommy Payne is about a Queensland song published by a collector with spurious details and a few strategic changes.):

A PUB WITHOUT BEER

As was the case with BOLD TOMMY PAYNE, we feel that there is a need to correct some erroneous statements regarding the origin of A PUB WITHOUT BEER, a version of which became very popular a couple of years ago. The public were led to believe that the popular version was written by a Sydney singer If it was, then it will be seen that it owes a lot to this ballad by Northern Queensland farmer, Dan Sheehan of Ingham. Note that it first appeared in THE NORTH QUEENSLAND REGISTER, January 1st, 1944, on page 22.It was part of a feature called ON THE TRACK by Bill Bowyang.

A PUB WITHOUT BEER

It is lonely away from your kindred and all
In the bushland at night when the warrigals call,
It is sad by the sea where the wild breakers boom,
Or to look on a grave and contemplate doom,
But there's nothing on earth half as lonely and drear
As to stand in the bar of a pub without beer

Madam with her needles sits still by the door,
The boss smokes in silence, he is joking no more,
There's a faraway look on the face of the bum,
While the barmaid looks down at the paint on her thumb,
The cook has gone cranky and the yardman is queer,
Oh, a terrible place is a pub without beer.

Once it stood by the wayside all stately and proud,
'Twas a home to the loafer a joy to the crowd,
Now all silent the rooftree that often times rang
When the navvys were paid and the cane cutters sang,
Some are sleeping their last in a land far from here.
Oh, a terrible place is a pub without beer.

They can hang to their coupons for sugar and tea,
And the shortage of sandshoes does not worry me,
And though benzine and razors be both frozen stiff,
What is wrong with the horse and the old fashioned ziff,
'Mid the worries of war there's but one thing I fear,
'Tis to stand in the bar of a pub without beer.

Oh, you brew of brown barley, what charm is shine,
'Neath thy spell men grow happy and cease to repine,
The cowards become brave and the weak become strong
The dour and the grumpy burst forth into song,
If there's aught to resemble high heaven down here,
'Tis the place of joy where they ladle out beer.

Ingham, 1944. Dan Sheehan