Mudcat Australia-New Zealand Songbook

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 05:27 AM

I've been worried that we don't have any of Martin Pearson's excellent songs!

So I went looking & found one, posted by our very own Gerry

Date: 06 May 18 - 06:09 AM

OK, I've transcribed Martin Pearson's song. There are a few places where he breaks the song to make jokes, I haven't transcribed those bits. No guarantees that I got everything right.

The Pope Song by Martin Pearson (tune - I Will Survive)

Once I was the Pope I was sanctified
Kept thinking I could never live without God by my side
But I spent oh so many nights just thinking how I'd get along
And I grew strong, and I knew Nietzsche had been wrong

So now He's back. God is not dead
I just woke up to find this big old Jewish voice inside my head
I said why had you forsaken us? Was it some kind of test?
He said today's the eighth day and I've had a lovely rest

So join my church, do as I say
With the Catholics you can break a dozen sins in half a day
There's masturbation, contraception, which will help the Church with breeding
Sloth and lust and greed and anger and of course the big one, speeding

Once the Church was strong categorically
We made our home in Rome when no one bothered Italy
Now I spend my precious time making laws for you to keep
Don't forget I'm the shepherd, you're supposed to be the sheep

And now you're back, just when you please
It's such a casual communion you think wafers grow on trees
I should have made you take a vow, I should have made you sign a form
With my laws on contraception it was me who got you born

So now just go, get off my faith
Just turn around now, you're not welcome any place
I tried to teach you God's new laws, tried to teach you them with zeal
It might have been much quicker to train the Papal seal

And now I'm back from being shot
I look as lively as I've ever done which doesn't say a lot
But I showed those doubting Thomases who thought I could be hurt
I'm the world's best male role model in a full-length satin skirt

But I'm still back to steal the show
I'm not the pooped out little Pontiff that your granny used to know
I can kiss the dirt all over 'cause my touring roster's full
I can make a saint a fortnight, I can talk the Papal Bull

I am a rock, I will survive
As long as I can hum a hymn I know I'm still alive
I may not be the best Pope but at least I'm not the worst
And I know that in comparison to Pope John Paul the First

I will survive.

Martin Pearson & John Thompson sing The Pope Song

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 05:37 AM

Stewie previously posted a Dave Oakes song : “Beneath Uluru” : Dave writes Good Stuff!
Lawler’s Balcony was on a self-built Troppo*** home in Darwin’s “Coconut Grove” and this balcony saw much merriment and music-making in the ‘80s :)


LIVERPOOL ECHO (aka Lawler’s Balcony)

Dave Oakes

I was sitting on Lawler’s balcony, I looked at him and he looked at me
He said “It’s been a long time since I watched that River Mersey flow”

Yeah, we were just a couple of kids when the Beatles had all those hits
And Liverpool echoed to the sound of brand new Rock and Roll.

Ch.
And Lawler laughs – oh, you know how Lawler laughs
It’s infectious – makes you wanna laugh along
And Lawler cries, tears well up in his eyes
Worrying about the world that’s Lawler’s job.

Sitting on Lawler’s balcony, as the sun sets over the Timor Sea
He said “I’m glad I came here, this Australia’s so very much alive”

Yeah, it beats walkin’ in the rain - we’ll never be the same again
Missing the last bus and having to walk all the way along Queens Drive.

Lawler laughs – oh, you know how Lawler laughs
It’s infectious – makes you wanna laugh along
Lawler cries, tears well up in his eyes
Worrying about the world that’s Lawler’s job.

    Chilly winds and icy seas spray the Wallasey Ferry
    The tractor tyres on the landing stage bounce and bounce and sway
    The rain, in grey and scattered sheets, illuminates the street lamps
    And it all seems so romantic when it’s oh, so far away.

Sitting on Lawler’s balcony, in the early morning - ‘bout half past three
Drinking home brew, reminiscing all our yesterdays.

“Why should I worry?” Lawler sighs - and looks up at those Southern skies
“This is Darwin – Paradise! – I got Frangipanni breeze!” (Ahhhhh…)

Lawler laughs – oh, you know how Lawler laughs
It’s infectious – you just have to laugh along
Lawler cries, tears well up in his eyes
Worrying about the world that’s Lawler’s job.



Here is a clip of Dave Oakes' (of Alice Springs but ex Liverpool, UK) heart-felt observations, sung by local Maleny (and ex-Liverpool) troubadour, Tommy Leonard : https://www.tommyleonard.com/lawlersbalcony.mp3

I feel it is a most beautiful song ..... (but then I would :)


***Here is a link to views of the Top End Troppo house that Paul (ex Liverpool, UK) built in the 1980s, with views over the mangroves to the sea : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bueF-1abr_s&t=2s


Vale, Lawls (1946-2014)


Cheers, R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 05:52 AM

If no-one has Martin's (S)crap Book or Bucket of Air, I might have to locate my copies in the BMC library.

sandra

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 09:36 PM

BAYLEY STREET
(J.Sorensen/R.Montgomery)

Oh men have come and men have gone
?Since Bayley's star gleamed bright
?And new lights shine where old lights shone
?In Bayley street tonight

And did you see those grand old men
?Bright-eyed, though bowed and grey?
Returning to the fields again?
Like ghosts of yesterday

The human tide swept swiftly west?
Then slowly ebbed again?
And some fulfilled their golden quest?
While some found loss and pain

And some returned to whence they came ?
With wealth and tales to tell?
And some found graves that bear no name?
And some still with us dwell

My father often told a tale
?While young eyes glistened bright
?Of golden days at Bonnie Vale?
And Bayley street by night

For he was of the eastern side
?He felt the urge to roam?
Long wait ‘They’ by the Lachlan side
?He made the west his home

Now forty years have passed away
(Twelve thousand suns have set)
And from that roaring yesterday
The echoes linger yet

Yes, men have come and men have gone
Since Bayley's star gleamed bright
And new lights shine where old lamps shone
In Bayley street tonight

Another Sorensen poem set to music by Roger Montgomery. It relates to Bayley Street in Coolgardie and the gold rush. Recorded on Dingo's Breakfast 'Jack Sorensen: Weaver of Dreams'. Strangely, Dingo's Breakfast CD has it titled 'The ghosts of Bayley Street' which is another Sorensen poem. Read it here:

Ghosts of Bayley Street

Arthur Wellesley Bayley discovered the gold field around which Coolgardie grew.

Bayley

--Stewie. 

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 09:43 PM

Piper on the Hilltop - John Warner 1989 Lyrics from "Who was There"
John was moved by the unexpected sound of bagpipes being played near the Spence shops in Belconnen near Canberra. The moment was climaxed by a dramatic summer thunderstorm rising over the Brindabella Range, an outcrop of the Snowy Mountains. A 'pibroch' is a traditional bagpipe air serving as a call to battle or a lament .


It's a hot December evening
And there's herald of a change
In the mighty clouds that roll across
The Brindabella Range.

There's a piper on the hilltop
By the supermarket square,
And his pibroch falls like sunset clouds
Above the city air.

The chattering of kids at play,
The sullen roar of cars
The thunder of a jet plane's flight
Above the rising stars.

I sit beside my window
And I listen to the town
And an aching air, an old lament,
Like mist comes drifting down.

Then Spence gives way to Glencoe,
Bonny Charlie's at Dunbar,
And the 'Flowers of the Forest,'
They all are gone awa'

A breeze disturbs the silent leaves,
Rolling thunder brings the change
With the pibroch for Belconnen Town
By the Brindabella Range

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 10:51 PM

I reckon this one deserves a place in any Oz songbook. Here in the Top End, it has been trotted out in many a boozy folkie session - just shows our advanced years!

ROCK AND ROLL (I GAVE YOU ALL THE BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE)
(Kevin Johnson)

I can still remember when I bought my first guitar
Remember just how good the feeling was, put it proudly in my car
And my family listened fifty times to my two-song repertoire
And I told my mum her only son was gonna be a star
Bought all the Beatles records, sounded just like Paul
Bought all the old Chuck Berrys, 78s and all
And I sat by my record player, playin’ every note they played
And I watched them all on TV, makin' every move they made

Rock and roll, I gave you all the best years of my life
All the dreamy sunny Sundays, all the moonlit summer nights
I was so busy in the back room writin’ love songs to you
While you were changin’ your direction and you never even knew
That I was always just one step behind you

'66 seemed like the year I was really goin’ somewhere
We were living in San Francisco, with flowers in our hair
Singing songs of kindness so the world would understand
That the guys and me were something more than just another band
And then ’69 in LA, came around so soon
We were really making headway and writing lots of tunes
And we must have played the wildest stuff we had ever played
The way the crowds cried out for us, we thought we had it made

Rock and roll, I gave you all the best years of my life
All the crazy lazy young days, all the magic moonlit nights
I was so busy on the road singin’ love songs to you
While you were changin’ your direction, and you never even knew
That I was always, just one step behind you

’71 in Soho, when I saw Suzanne
I was trying to go it solo, with someone else’s band
And she came up to me later and I took her by the hand
And I told her all my troubles and she seemed to understand
And she followed me through London, through a hundred hotel rooms
Through a hundred record companies who didn’t like my tunes
And she followed me when, finally, I sold my old guitar
And she tried to help me understand, I’d never be a star

Rock and roll, I gave you all the best years of my life
All the dreamy sunny Sundays, all the moonlit summer nights
And though I never knew the magic of makin’ it with you
I thank the Lord for giving me the little bit I knew
And I will always be one step behind you

Rock and roll, I gave you all the best years of my life
Singing out my love songs in the brightly flashing lights
And though I never knew the magic of makin’ it with you
I thank the Lord for giving me the little bit I knew

Youtube clip

It was a quick song for me because I've spent months on one line. It just came to me one day as I was driving home, feeling all this frustration of two years without making a record. So I decided to write a song not about giving someone the best years of my life, but to write about the pursuit of success, which I thought related to a lot of people around the world, not just in music but anything. Kevin Johnson March 2002.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 30 Oct 20 - 11:07 PM

Can someone explain why unwanted question marks appear when posting some lyrics. It happened again with 'Bayley Street' lyrics above. Annoying!

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 31 Oct 20 - 06:21 AM

Apologies Stew, you had posted CONDAMINE on the 15th and I repeated it 15 days later!! R-J :((

Good on yer for the Kevin Johnson classic - I had been wondering about it!!
As I had also been wondering about Doug Ashdown's "Winter in America" (co-written with Jimmy Stewart)???
That duo were also responsible for "Antique Annie's Magic Lantern Show", so beautifully done by the late Marian Henderson.

Doug was an Adelaide boy, I believe .....


R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 31 Oct 20 - 06:40 AM

no worries - I forgot to put it on the list (oops!) I was busy posting info about Joe Daly, so we still (only) have 383 songs

sandra (wondering if she has missed any other songs)

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 31 Oct 20 - 07:59 AM

Funny you should wonder that, Sandra!

I have been going through from the start to see songs that may be missing a recording clip (and yes, there are some!) and then researching them - but what a long job that is promising to be!!! :((

14-15 Sept a reference to Graham Seal's audio/lyrics website
24-25 Sept a reference to Daniel Kelly's audio/lyrics website
28 Sept      links to heaps of WA songs, but esp "The Georgette"

but mostly
04 Oct    Dance Up the Sun (John Thompson) is missing
04 Oct    Down in the Goldmine (anon) is missing

+ only about 12-13 songs since Old No. 377 and up to today = 31 Oct

So, not much! (you're doing a splendid job, Sandra!)

Cheers, R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 31 Oct 20 - 09:52 PM

Here's another good'un from Kevin Johnson - a song for his youngest son.

SCOTTY
(Kevin Johnson)

With wide eyes you wonder why you understand some
And you don't understand all the rest
Well, little boy, your daddy's been living a while
And I really don't know much myself
I'll teach you the whys and the wherefores
And the ways of this world I have known
But life is a journey of different directions
And sometimes we travel alone

And Scotty
Life can be rough
Life can be tough
Life can be kind
Scotty, life can be fun
Life can be one wonderful time
So live with the good times
And learn from the bad
And laugh at the fun times you've had
Look for the reasons to carry you through
And Scotty
That's all you can do

And you wonder why some days are fun days and Sundays
And some days may not be the same
Well blue skies are many and grey skies are few
So we do what we can in the rain
The whys and the wherefores are there for a reason
And sometimes we don't understand
But life is a journey that's leading us somewhere
And we get there the best way we can

And Scotty life can be rough
Life can be tough
Life can go wrong
Scotty, life can be fun
Life can just come rolling along
So live with the good times
And learn from the bad
And laugh at the fun times you've had
Look for the reasons to carry you through
And Scotty
That's all you can do 

Youtube clip

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 31 Oct 20 - 10:10 PM

I DON'T WANT TO BE A KIWI
(Peter Cape)

I don't really want to be a Kiwi
I'd much, much rather be a Pom
So you sheilas and you jokers and you drovers and you soakers
Can go back to the bush where you belong

No, I don't really want to be a Kiwi
And I think great-grandmama went quite astray
When she took a southern trip on the Wakefield's sailing ship
And got married to a miner on the Grey

It's nasty, coarse and rough to be a Kiwi
And I cannot stand the language that they speak
And to hear that voice declaiming all those 'tarts' and 'bints' and 'flamings'
Almost puts me off my - er - tucker for a week

No, I won't, won't, will not be a Kiwi
(Who really wants to be a flightless bird?)
The lion, and unicorn too, were symbols I was born to
But this flightless avian is quite absurd

No, I may not, cannot, must not be a Kiwi
But I know my sense of loneliness is keen
When I see a map and say, there, twelve thousand miles away
Is the Home to which I've never, ever, been

Tune: 'I don't want to join the army'

--Stewie

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 31 Oct 20 - 10:39 PM

Another whimsical offering from Peter Cape. The Monde Marie was a folksinging coffee bar in Wellington run by Mary Seddon who died in July 2000.

MONDE MARIE
(Peter Cape)

The gramophone's playing lieder
The radio's blaring jazz
There's a brass band outside with its valves open wide
In a hell of a razzamatazz
In the flat below there's a cello
Above there's a whole symphony
So I'm off for the night
Of the music I like
Down at the Monde Marie

You can blow 'til there's cracks in your cornet
You can boomph your bassoon 'til it bursts
You can saw your Strad 'til the catgut goes bad
And your manuscript moulders to dust
But don't think I'm a sucker for silence
There's no scrap of the Trappist in me
Far better than quiet for me is a diet
Of song a la Monde Marie

So keep your violas di Gamba
Your clavichords, rebecks and lutes
Likewise your saxophones, bongos and slide-trombones
Flageolets, fipples and flutes
What I want is the sound of Segovia
An Ives or a Clauson-to-be
And to hear them my choice is the guitars and voices
I find at the Monde Marie

Youtube clip

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 01 Nov 20 - 03:49 AM

VAN DIEMEN’S LAND

Stan Hugill's (one of many variants)

Ye rambling boys of Liverpool, I'll have ye to beware,
'Tis when ye go a-hunting wid yer dog, yer gun, yer snare,
Watch out for the game-keepers, keep your dog at your command
Just think on all them hardships, goin' to Van Diemen's Land.

We had two Irish lads on board, Mickey Murphy an' Paddy Malone,
And they were both the stoutest friends that ever a man could own.
But the gamekeeper he'd caught them, and from ol' England's strand
They were seven years transported for to plough Van Diemen's Land.

We had on board a lady fair, Bridget Reilly wuz her name,
An' she wuz sent from Liverpool for a-playin' of the game.
Our captain fell in love wid her and he married her out of hand,
And she gave us all good usage, boys, goin' to Van Diemen's Land.

The moment that we landed there, upon that fatal shore,
The planters they inspected us, some fifty score or more,
Then they marched us off like hosses, an' they sold us out of hand,
They yoked us to the plough, me boys, for to plough Van Diemen's Land.

As I lay in me bunk one night, a dreamin' all alone,
I dreamt I wuz in Liverpool, 'way back in Marybone,
Wid me own true love beside me, an' a jug o' ale in me hand
Then awoke so broken-hearted, lyin' on Van Diemen's Land.


Lyrics taken from the Mainly Norfolk site.

This Antipodean penal colony, just one of many overseas dumping grounds for the British Govt, was renamed from Abel Tasman’s “Van Diemen’s Land” to Tasmania in 1856, along with gaining “responsible self govt” and eventually became Australia’s island state at Federation, in 1901. Transportation was abolished in 1852, but Port Arthur was open until 1877.


Sung here by the late Marian Henderson :   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EDwD_kGrYw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfHU_Nbe1rQ    Here’s one by Alex Hood (includes old pics)

This one’s a Scouse recitation, with rather disturbing visuals!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTLcJdSQzZw


Van Diemen’s Land has become a popular songwriting and film-making subject and other songs of this title were found by Australia’s Russell Morris, U2’s The Edge, and Aussie blues guitar legend Jeff Lang. I’m sure there’s more.


Cheers, R-J

I think that's it from me for a few days; Werk is shrieking!!

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 01 Nov 20 - 06:40 PM

WHILE THE BILLY BOILS
(D.M.Wright/P.Garland

The speargrass crackles under the billy and overhead is the winter sun
There’s snow on the hills, there’s frost in the gully, that reminds me of things that I’ve seen and done
Of blokes that I knew, and mates that I’ve worked with, and the sprees that we had in the days gone by
And a mist comes up from my heart to my eyelids, I feel fair sick and I wonder why

There is coves and coves! Some I liked partic’lar, and some I would sooner I never knowed
But a bloke can’t choose the chaps that he’s thrown with in the harvest paddock or here in the road
There was chaps from the other side that I shore with that I’d like to have taken along for mates
But we said, ‘So long!’ and we laughed and parted for good and all at the station gates

I mind the time when the snow was drifting and Billy and me was out for the night
We lay in the lee of a rock, and waited, hungry and cold, for the morning light
Then he went one way and I the other – we’d been like brothers for half a year
He said: ‘I’ll see you again in town, mate, and we’ll blow the froth off a pint of beer’

He went to a job on the plain he knowed of and I went poisoning out at the back
And I missed him somehow – for all my looking I never could knock across his track
The same with Harry, the bloke I worked with, the time I was over upon the coast
He went for a fly-round over to Sydney, to stay for a fortnight – a month at most

He never came back, and he never wrote me – I wonder how blokes like him forget
We had been where no one had been before us, we had starved for days in the cold and wet
We had sunk a hundred holes that was duffers, till at last we came on a fairish patch
An’ we worked in rags in the dead of winter while the ice-bars hung from the frozen thatch

Yes, them was two, and I can’t help mind them – good mates as ever a joker had
But there’s plenty more as I’d like to be with, for half of the blokes on the road is bad
It sets me a-thinking, the world seems wider, for all we fancy it’s middling small
When a chap like me makes friends in plenty and they slip away and he loses them all

The speargrass crackles under the billy and overhead is the winter sun
There’s snow on the hills, there’s frost in the gully and, oh, the things that I’ve seen and done
The blokes that I’ve knowed and the mates that I’ve worked with, and the sprees that we had in the days gone by
But I somehow fancy we’ll all be pen-mates on the day when they call the roll of the sky

Another poem by NZ's 'outback laureate', David McKee Wright. Above is the complete poem. In this YT clip, Phil Garland amends and shortens the poem:

Youtube clip

Wright moved to Australia in 1910 and wrote for 'The Bulletin' and other publications.

David McKee Wright

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 01 Nov 20 - 07:37 PM

THE BOTTLE RUN
(Barry Skipsey)

Sweating on the bloody board waiting for the bell
And the cocky's bending down, giving me hell
The wheels are spinning down the line
Seems everyone's the gun
And this we call the bottle run

Chorus:
The bottle run, well I smell it through the bottle
This shearer is waiting for his beer
Hang up your dungarees and drag that stubby clear
We'll wash the pain away with a quiet beer

Wethers in the first run, finally cut them out
Breaking combs and cutters, I made them pay
Kick that bastard down the chute, he's not worth the time
He's not worth the sixty cents I earn

Chorus

Roustie fetch the lambing boards and change the locks and pieces
Cheeky lad, you'll get my boot
I hear you drop that broom once more, you'll have the team upon you
And with black balls you won't look so cute

Chorus

I've smoked my share of rollies, I've cursed and sweated all day
I swear I'll give this bloody game away
But until I win the lottery or make it with the nags
You'll find me hear on board amongst the dags

Chorus

I travelled up from Melbourne town looking for a pen
I'm working Queensland sheds once again
Yes, I'm working for the Grazcos man until the setting sun
And waiting for that bottle run

Chorus

Another little bottler from Barry Skipsey of Alice Springs. This was first recorded for his 'NT Road' LP. Barry noted:

I was once told by a shearer that he considered the last two hours of his day to be called the bottle run. Why? Because he reckoned he could smell the beer through the bottle.

Youtube clip

Wongawilli did a fine cover:

Wongwilli

Grazcos

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 01 Nov 20 - 08:38 PM

NULLABOR SONG
(Kasey Chambers)

When the fire burns out here
It's brighter than the city lights
Warmer than a heart of gold
And dingoes howl just to break the silence
The sun comes up just to break the cold

Last night I woke
With the stars looking back at me
Swallowing the sky
I felt no anger, I felt no shame
I felt no reason to cry

If I'm not here in the morning
I'll cry a river of tears
And I'll learn to live in a new town
But my heart is staying here

When it's quiet out here
A hundred miles away
You can hear the train on the line
The whistle blows just to break the silence
I wave just to break the time

I close my eyes
I think of runnin' water
I think of runnin' away
But the fire's burnt to ashes
And it's darker than before
But I can see as clear as day

If I'm not here in the morning
I'll cry a river of tears
And t I'll learn to live in a new town
But my heart is staying here

Yes, I'll learn to live in a new town
But my heart is staying here

Youtube clip

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 02 Nov 20 - 03:34 AM

Yay! So good to hear Skippy again and "The Bottle Run"!! Sadly, I don't think I've got his "NT Road" LP anymore :(

and now for something completely different :


THE PLAINS OF EMU
(John McGarvie, 1829 - aka The Exile of Erin)

I.
O ! farewell my country--my kindred--my lover ;
Each morning and evening is sacred to you,
While I toil the long day without shelter or cover,
And fell the tall gums the black-butted and blue.
Full often I think of and talk of thee, Erin--
Thy eath-covered mountains are fresh in my view,
Thy glens, lakes and rivers, Loch-Con and Kilkerran,
While chained to the soil on the Plains of Emu.

II.
The iron-bark, wattle and gum-trees extending
Their shades under which rests the shy kangaroo,
May be felled by the bless'd who have hope o'er them bending,
To cheer their rude toil tho' far exiled from you.
But, alas! without hope, peace, or honour to grace me,
Each feeling was crushed in the bud as it grew,
Whilst "never" is stamped on the chains that embrace me,
And endless my thrall on the Plains of Emu.

III.
Hard hard was my fate far from thee to be driven,
Unstained, unconvicted, as sure was my due;
I loved to dispense of the freedom of Heaven,
But force gained the day and I suffer for you.
For this hand never broke what by promise was plighted,
Deep treason this tongue to my country ne'er knew,
No base-earned coin in my coffer e'er lighted,
Yet enchained I remain on the Plains of Emu.

IV.
Dear mother thy love from my bosom shall never,
Depart, but shall flourish untainted and true ;
Nor grieve that the base in their malice should ever
Upbraid thee, and none to give malice her due.
Spare, spare her the tear and no charge lay upon her,
And weep not my Norah her griefs to renew,
But cherish her age till night closes on her,
And think of the swain who still thinks but of you.

V.
But your names shall still live though like writing in water ;
When confined to the notes of the tame cockatoo,
Each wattle scrub echo repeats to the other
Your names and each breeze hears me sighing anew.
For dumb be my tongue, may my heart cease her motion,
If the Isle I forget where my first breath I drew !
Each affection is warmed with sincerest devotion,
For the tie is unbroken on the Plains of Emu.

Anambaba, May, 1829.


Lyrics taken from Mark Gregory’s excellent “Folkstream” site : http://folkstream.com/071.html


Raymond Crooke writes on his YT channel :
“Though it's often thought of as a traditional Australian convict ballad, this song, also known as "The Plains of Emu", was written by John McGarvie, who wrote under the nom de plume "M."
It was first published in "The Sydney Gazette", 26th May, 1829. The tune is traditional and is generally known as "Savourneen Deelish."
Emu Plains was a prison farm 35 miles from Sydney for convicts transported to Australia, established with the purpose of growing food to feed the increasing population of Sydney
I first heard this sung by English-Australian folksinger, Brian Mooney, on the classic album "Moreton Bay and Other Songs, Mainly of Convict Origin" (1963), which he made with Martyn Wyndham-Read and David Lumsden…..”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6cIy4LKWaE I was only familiar with ALEX HOOD’s rendition, but this is an interesting version by Sydney’s renowned all-rounder JEANNIE LEWIS.
more about her here : https://peoplepill.com/people/jeannie-lewis/


OK, back to werk now!
Cheers, R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 02 Nov 20 - 06:57 AM

A SONG FOR GRACE        

by Ted Egan


I was a girl of thirteen when my 3 brothers went to the war
Martin and Robert and Jack, and as I wave from the door
I thought who in the world could have brothers as handsome as they
Three Australian Light Horsemen : I see their proud figures today,

Our parents were Irish with no love for England at all
But their sons were Australians and each bravely answered the call
In their turned-up slouch hats, and their feathers and leggings and spurs
The Empire, as much as my mother, knew these sons were hers,

    And at the going down of the sun and in the morning
    We will remember them, Lest we forget.

The mailman brought cards from Colombo and then from Port Said
Here's a photo of Jack in Egypt, his first camel ride
And look at young Bobby, in London, here crossing The Strand
And Martin writes 'mum and dad, life in the army is grand',

The same mailman brought us the news about our darling Jack                        
Regret to inform you your son John will never come back                                    
He died of his wounds at Gallipoli, so brave was he                                          
He’s awarded the Military Medal, posthumously,

    And at the going down of the sun and in the morning
    We will remember them, Lest we forget.

The telegram came, my mother collapsed, and I had                                          
The terrible task of breaking the news to my dad
With our old draught horse, Punch, my father was ploughing the land
I ran to the paddock, the telegram clutched in my hand,

The Irishman read it, said thank you, now leave me alone
Go on back to the house, help your mother, she's there on her own
He called, 'Stand up Punch, we have to get on with this job'
But I saw his slumped shoulders, and I heard his heart rending sob,

    And at the going down of the sun and in the morning
    We will remember them, Lest we forget.

Well Robert was gassed and he always had pains in his head                              
And Martin was shell-shocked and he’d’ve been better off dead                        
And I, I’m just an old lady who watched them all go                                          
But I am the one you should ask about war, for I know,

That all of these years have gone by and I know that we’ve met                                       
Yes, I will remember them : I can’t forget,

And at the going down of the sun and in the morning.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2ycH8wwFJs
Ted Egan wrote this song for his mother, Grace; sung here by his wife, Nerys Evans.



No further comment is necessary.
R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 02 Nov 20 - 08:10 AM

THE THINGS WE DARE NOT TELL

Henry Lawson (1901)

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun's still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we're doing well,
But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell.

There's the old love wronged ere the new was won, there's the light of long ago;
There's the cruel lie that we suffer for, and the public must not know.
So we go through life with a ghastly mask, and we're doing fairly well,
While they break our hearts, oh, they kill our hearts! do the things we must not tell.

We see but pride in a selfish breast, while a heart is breaking there;
Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all men's hearts lay bare!
We live and share the living lie, we are doing very well,
While they eat our hearts as the years go by, do the things we dare not tell.

We bow us down to a dusty shrine, or a temple in the East,
Or we stand and drink to the world-old creed, with the coffins at the feast;
We fight it down, and we live it down, or we bear it bravely well,
But the best men die of a broken heart for the things they cannot tell.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjAfqf8pysg   A setting by the late Noel Watson, sung by Blue Mountains musician, Christine Wheeler and friends, from her 2013 CD of Lawson songs “Rain in the Mountains”,

A very different and topical interpretation by musician, Katherine Buckell, residing in NY, but born in Victoria : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUbYjXuAgD4


R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 02 Nov 20 - 07:20 PM

CULLER'S LAMENT (Black Matai)
(P.Cape/D.Toms)

What are you singing, black matai, black matai
There's snow on the tops and the fire's burning down
What are you singing, east wind in the matai

Your love's left the station, she's gone to the town

What are you chattering, tall mountain birches
The wind's in the west and the rain's pelting down
The flash floods are coming, I've got to keep moving

Your love's left the station, she's gone to the town

What are you whispering, wind in the snowgrass
Combing the tussocks and smoothing them down
My love's hair was golden, like snowgrass in summer

Your love's left the station, she's gone to the town

Winds in the open tops what are you calling
There's deer in the valley, a thousand feet down
You cry on the cols and you shout on the ridges

My love's left the station, she's gone to the town

The stink of the deerskins, the screech of the keas
The eighty pound pack that keeps dragging me down
I'll get out of the mountains and back to the sheep yards

But my love's left the station, she's gone to the town

Youtube clip

Note:

Deer cullers hunt deer in the bush and mountains to reduce their numbers and thereby the damage they do to the environment. Nowadays, hunting is often done by helicopter, but cullers used to live lonely lives - in the wilderness for weeks at a time, getting supplies through high country stations and returning to town only after months of drying and packing skins. Deer were introduced for sport, but in the 1930s high country farmers and forest workers realised that the deer were a threat to farming and the land itself. They competed with sheep for grazing and destroyed bush and high country cover, leading to soil erosion. The deer culler was a 'good keen man', the phrase coming from a newspaper advertisement for cullers. They came from all backgrounds and were renowned for their humour and independence. From 'An Ordinary Joker:The life and songs of Peter Cape' p106.

Matai - (black pine) a major forest tree reaching 30m with a tall straight trunk.

Kea - native parrot, the world's only alpine parrot. 'the weight of the rifle' is often sung in place of 'the screech of the keas'

Col - a mountain pass or saddle

80 pound pack - the approx 40kg pack that carried essentials for the culler: food, clothes, ammunition, billy and plate.

Snowgrass - hardy alpine grass which grows in tussocks or clumps.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 02 Nov 20 - 07:38 PM

EULOGY (FOR A BLACK PERSON)
(Kev Carmody)

Lay me down in the sacred ground
Keep me from the cold
Keep me in the deep warm earth
Where the stars can see my soul 
Take me where them trees stand tall
By the waters in the river bend
Let me face the rising sun
Commend my spirit to the wind
Make no monuments or mortal crowns
Or speak my name again when you lay me down

Lay me where the forest blooms
In the land that’s seen no plough
Where the fragrance on the western wind
Is carried from every springtime flower 
Give me peace and give me rest
Lay me down on the mountain crest
Bury me softly without a sound
Let the scrub grow back across that mound
Make no monuments or mortal crowns 
Or speak my name again when you lay me down

Bury me quick and bury me deep
Without no coffin or shrouded sheet
Wrap me in the Mother Earth
So I can nurture the land’s rebirth
Give me joy and give me song
Carry the struggle wide and long
Do not grieve and do not weep
Mortal memories are all we keep
make no monuments or mortal crowns
Or speak my name again when you lay me down

Let the winter dew fall on that grave
Let me see the night sky blaze
See the moon in the winter’s wane
Knifing through that cosmic maze 
Give me water, give me fire
Don’t give me monuments of stone
Give me rainbows in the sky 
Give me back my land in which to lie
Make no monuments or mortal crowns 
Or speak my name again when you lay me down

Youtube clip

--Stewie. 

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 02 Nov 20 - 08:42 PM

EUABALONG BALL


Oh, who hasn't heard of Euabalong Ball
Where the lads of the Lachlan, the great and the small
Come bent on diversion from far and from near
To cast off their troubles for just once a year

Like stringy old wethers, the shearers in force
All rushed to the bar as a matter of course
While waltzing his cliner, the manager cursed
'Cause someone had caught him a jab with his spurs

There were sheilas in plenty, some two or three score
Some two-tooths, some weaners, some maybe some more
With their fleeces all dipped and so fluffy and clean
The finest young shearlings that ever was seen

The boundary-riders was friskin' about
But the well-sinkers seemed to be feelin' the drought
If the water was scarce, well, the whisky was there
And what they couldn't drink, boys, they rubbed in their hair

There was music and dancin' and goin' the pace
Some went at a canter, some went at a race
There was buckin' and glidin' and rootin' and slidin'
And to vary the gait, some couples collidin'

Oh, Euabalong Ball was a wonderful sight
Rams among the two-tooths the whole flamin' night
And many young girls will regret to recall
The polkas they danced at Euabalong Ball.



"Euabalong is on the Lachlan River some forty miles west of Condobolin, and the song was still around in those parts when I worked there in the early 1930s. A more genteel version than ours, called The Wooyeo Ball, was printed in Rob Webster’s The First Fifty Years of Temora (Temora, NSW, 1950), but the song belongs to the West, not the South. Webster puts the date of his version as 1888. In the course of more than thirty years singing the song, I’m sure I’ve tinkered around a lot with the tune.
- A. L. Lloyd"


I was after the version by Australia’s “The Wild Colonials” bushband (which originated with Declan Affley c.1969), with Jacko Kevins singing lead, but I have lamented their YT dirth before in this thread.
[So far I have only come across one offering : “Canine Catastrophe” (aka The Dog’s Festival) : maybe that one should be posted???]
BtW, I note that I incorrectly referred to them in my September 12th post as “The Wild Colonial Boys” but that is the Canadian band. The Aussie ones were “The Wild Colonials”.

Anyhoo, despite the lyrics and notes above being taken from A.L.Lloyd’s recording on “The Great Aust’n Legend” LP, here is a version by The Cobbers : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeFihol-TbE                 

R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 02 Nov 20 - 08:45 PM

More than 20 years ago, Bob Bolton posted this sentimental poem set to music by John Lahey.

HERBERT HOOVER'S LOVE SONG
(H.Hoover/J.Lahey)

Do you ever dream, my sweetheart, of a twilight long ago
Of a park in old Kalgoorlie, where the bougainvilleas grow
Where the moonbeams on the pathways trace a shimmering brocade
And the overhanging peppers form a lovers'promenade?

Where in soft cascades of cadence from a garden close at hand
Came the murmurous, mellow music of a sweet, orchestral band
Years have flown since then, my sweetheart, fleet as orchard blooms in May
But the hour that fills my dreaming, was it only yesterday?

Stood we two a space in silence, while the summer sun slipped down
And the grey dove dusk, with drooping pinions, wrapt the mining town
Then you raised your tender glances darkly, dreamily to mine
And my pulses clashed like symbols in a rhapsody divine

And the pent-up fires of longing loosed their prison's weak control
And in wild, hot words came rushing from my burning soul
Wild hot words that spoke of passion, hitherto but half expressed
And I clasped you close, my sweetheart, kissed you, strained you to my breast

While the starlight-spangled heavens rolled around us where we stood
And a tide of bliss kept surging through the current of our blood
And I spent my soul in kisses, crushed upon your scarlet mouth
Oh! My red-lipped, sunbrowned sweetheart, dark-eyed daughter of the south

It was well that fate should part us, it was well my path should lead
Back to slopes of high endeavour, aye, and was it well, indeed
You have wed some southern squatter, learned long since his every whim
Soothed his sorrows, borne his troubles, sung your sweetest songs for him

I have fought my fight and triumphed, on the map I've writ my name
But I prize one hour of loving, more than fifty years of fame
It was but a summer madness that possessed us, men will hold
And the yellow moon bewitched me with its wizardry of gold

Let them say it, dear, but oft-times in the dusk I close my eyes
And in dreams drift back to where the stars rain splendour from the skies
To a park in far Kalgoorlie, where the golden wattles grow
Where you kissed me in the twilight of a summer long ago

And I clasp you close, my sweetheart, while each throbbing pulse is thrilled
By a low and mournful music that shall never more be stilled

Note from p10 'Great Australian Folk Songs, John Lahey, Hill of Content Publishing Co, Melbourne, 1965.

These remarkable verses are attributed to the late Herbert Hoover, President of the United States between 1929 and 1932. Hoover first came to the West Australian goldfields as a 23-year-old mining engineer in 1897, and he lived in Australia off and on for the next ten years. The goldfields historian, the late Arthur Reid, who knew Hoover, preserved the verses in his book 'Those Were the Days'. He said Hoover wrote them to a Kalgoorlie barmaid, years after he returned to the United States. Several West Australians sing different tunes, but their words are substantially the same. The tune here is my own adaptation.

Youtube clip

The American election looms. As a Republican, I wonder what Hoover would have thought of Trump.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 02 Nov 20 - 10:27 PM

GREEN BAN FUSILIERS

by Denis Kevans ©1972
tune: McAlpine's Fusiliers

Chorus
Up Broadway to the MBA come the Green Ban Fusiliers.
They stole the street with their marching feet, placards high above their ears.
In Sydney town they would not lie down, they gave Martin's scabs some cheer,
And it's up Broadway to the MBA come the Green Ban Fusiliers.

Half-smart thieves with their Gucci sleeves and car parks on the brain
Told the usual lie: 'The trees've got to die' - the fig trees in Sydney's domain,
And some said, 'Joe, we orta let 'em go. It's only bloody timber to be cleared,
Ah, but listen to the trees as they whisper to the breeze and the Green Ban Fusiliers.

Bulldozer blades made a lightning raid, coming in with a great big rush,
Moving in for the kill up at Hunter's hill, at beautiful Kelly's Bush,
But the local women lay down in the bulldozer's way, to the bucking and the shuddering of the gears,
When their hands were raised the ones they praised were the Green Ban Fusiliers.

They made a stand for our sunny land at the Rocks and Woolloomooloo.
On the chimney tops they waltzed with the cops to save a bit of Sydney for you,
And the finance fleas who made refugees of families who had been pioneers
Finished on their arse, and they did their brass with the Green Ban Fusiliers.

Through the years and through my tears I can see 'em marching again,
From the dizzy heights and the concrete sites in sunshine and in rain,
That patch of green's gettin' a lovely old sheen, no matter how many flow the years,
And it's up Broadway to the MBA come the Green Ban Fusiliers.


Lyrics and notes from Mark Gregory’s EXcellent website : http://unionsong.com/u041.html

"Many thanks to Denis Kevans for permission to publish this song. Denis, known as Australia's Poet Lorrikeet, worked in Sydney as a labourer and member of the NSW BLF when he wrote this song. In the 1970's the NSW Builders Labourers Federation joined with residents' action groups and took on major corporations to save heritage buildings, bushland, and low-rent inner-city housing from developers' bulldozers. The MBA in the song is the Master Builders Association."


Obit for the late Jack Mundey in the online ARCHITECTUREAU ezine : https://architectureau.com/articles/green-bans-hero-jack-mundey-dies/
IMHO, if only we’d had more men of his strength of character and ethics (and Joe Owens and Bob Pringle too), in every city in Oz, there’d be more ‘history’, trees, public open space, beautiful old buildings, and social responsibility, still extant (yes, I’m looking at you, Perth) …..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-sj50MyQOA Chloe & Jason Roweth sing this important tale.


Back to Werk for me,
R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 02:03 AM

wot not songs from Geoff & Peter??

All For Me Job © Geoff Francis and Peter Hicks 2006

Our union's story is there to be seen,
We've won many victories and we've suffered defeats,
But as I turn through the pages and look back through time,
There's one single question stands out in my mind -
Today we may prosper, today we live free,
But if it weren't for the union, where would we be?

Chorus:
It's our union, our union that defends our rights,
But our union's as strong as our will is to fight,
For the union is you and the union is me,
So stand up and stand by our union.

From it's humble beginnings our union has grown,
So no working person need struggle alone.
But no gain that's been made has been made without cost,
And together we'll see that no gain's ever lost;
Take a look at those countries where workers aren't free -
If it weren't for the union, where would we be?

It's our union, our union ...

Would you choose to go back, working twelve hours a day,
Would you choose to toil more and a pittance be paid?
Will you stand in the union against the new right,
Or do you think on your own you can withstand their might?
The answer is written in our history,
If it weren't for the union, where would we be?

It's our union, our union ...

They say we've got problems, and the unions they blame,
Well, Franco and Pinochet they said the same.
If our union they weaken, if our union they break,
Then where's our defence from becoming enslaved?
So would you choose bondage above liberty?
And if it weren't for the union, where would we be?

It's our union, our union ...

It's our union, our union ...

sound

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 02:16 AM

The Basic Wage Dream © Don Henderson 1963

Sung by Bill Berry

I dreamed a doctor told a judge from the Arbitration Court
That he would only live to preside on one more case being fought.
The judge whose conscience was ill at ease thought if this case will be my last,
To hand down a fair decision might make up for his unjust past.

The next case that was to come before this very worried sage,
Was a request to raise by fifty-two bob the weekly basic wage.
The old chap granted the raise in full and to assure his place in heaven,
Made the payments retrospective to nineteen hundred and seven.

On the first pay day after the trial I couldn't believe my luck,
The paymaster brought my wages out on a fork lift truck,
I dreamed we got paid on a Friday and on that lovely night,
Mayne Nickless sent an armoured car to get me home all right.

On the way we stopped at the R.S.L. and as I walked inside,
A poker machine took a look at my pay and committed suicide.
I turned around when I heard a man behind me softly speak,
It was Dr. Coombs trying to borrow a quid to see him through the week.

The alarm went off and I recalled as I was waking up,
How people dream they saw the horse that won the Melbourne Cup,
But they can't remember what number it was, well my dream was just the same
For I can't for the very life of me think of that judge's name.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 03:31 AM

Bump me into Parliament

Come listen all kind friends of mine
I want to move a motion
To make an Eldorado here
I've got a bonza notion

Chorus
Bump me into parliament
Bounce me any way at all
Bang me into parliament
On next election day

Some very wealthy friends I know
Declare I am most clever
While some can talk for an hour or so
Why I can talk for ever

I know the Arbitration Act
As a sailor knows his riggins
So if you want a small advance
I'll talk to Justice Higgins

I've read my bible ten times through
And Jesus justifies me
The man who does not vote for me
By Christ he crucifies me

Oh yes I am a Labor man
And believe in revolution
The quickest way to bring it on
Is talking constitution

I think the worker and the boss
Should keep their present stations
So I will surely pass a bill
'Industrial Relations'

So bump them into parliament
Bounce them any way at all
Bung them into parliament
Don't let the Court decay

Written by Bill Casey an Australian member of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) who later became secretary of the Queensland Branch of the Seamens Union of Australia. The IWW or Wobblies played an important part in the development of trade unions in USA. The most famous Wobbly was organiser/songwriter Joe Hill who was framed on a murder charge and executed in Salt Lake City. His ashes were scattered in many cities throughout the world, including Sydney. Tune 'Yankee Doodle'

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 03:41 AM

how topical!

Clive Palmer song Tune: Old Palmer Song

Clive Palmer he says loudly 'ideas never die'.
But I will show that statement is a mighty lie,
For I can name a few ideas that now are lacking lives,
And one of those I'm glad to say was the 'right to beating wives'.

It blows the mind heigh-ho Clive Palmer's joined the show,
And he has formed a voting band, so let the music play,
And if he makes the Lodge,he will be hard to dodge,
He's plain to see, even when he's a thousand miles away

People once believed that this old world was flat
But Aristotle came along and he put paid to that,
Yes he put paid to that and Galileo came to show,
That the earth went round the sun and his telescope proved so.

Another dead idea was that those who had black skin,
Were not as good as those who had a lack of mel-an-in.
Mr N. Mandela he fought and won that fight.
We know now that Ap-ar-thied, simply was not right.

Ideas they will grow and they will fall and die,
When all the people learn to think and don't believe a lie,
Let no-one preach a lie for just like you and me,
Ideas can languish and expire like leaves fall from a tree.

Extra Expandable Verses

So build your ship Titanic Clive although that has been done,
And your Tyranosaurus Rex will not scare anyone,
Why don't you use your money, it's something you don't lack,
Build swimming pools for all the schools in the far Outback?

If that's not to your taste and doesn't fit your plan,
Then fund a scientific lab to aid the life of man,
The life of a P.M. does not seem the place for you,
Your idea about ideas soon could land you in the Poo.

Yes Clive I think that you are far too good for that,
You might be big and over weight and some might call you fat,
But maybe there inside of you a heart of matching size,
Could do so much,so much more, than you realize.

Did you see the bright yellow poster after the Qld election this week - caption "Geez Clive $60 million and not a single seat, Should've come to Ikea". It's advertising a $27.95 chair from said store.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 03:51 AM

Nursery Rhyme

Nursery Rhyme, A poem by Frank Wilmot©1916
Tune by Chris Kempster©Chris Kempster 1950s


    One year, two year, three year, four,
    Comes a khaki gentleman knocking at the door.
    "Any little boys at home, send them out to me
    To train them and brain them in battles yet to be."

    When a little boy is born feed him, train him so.
    Put him in a cattle pen and wait for him to grow.
    When he's nice and plump and dear, and sensible and sweet,
    Throw him in the trenches for the great grey rats to eat.
    Toss him in the cannon's mouth, cannons fancy best
    Tender little boys' flesh that's easy to digest.

    Mother rears her family on two pounds ten a week.
    Teaches them to wash themselves, teaches them to speak.
    Rears them with a heart's love, rears them to be men.
    Grinds her fingers to the bone, and then... what then?

    But parents who must rear the boys the cannons love to slay,
    Also pay for cannons that blow other boys away.
    Parsons tell them that their sons have just been blown to bits.
    Patriotic parents must all laugh like fits.

    Rear the boys for honest men and send them out to die!
    Where's the coward father who would dare raise a cry?
    Any gentleman's aware folk rear their children for
    Blunderers and plunderers to mangle in a war!

    Five year, six year, seven year, eight.
    "Hurry up you little chaps, the captain's at the gate!"

    Notes

    In 1916 during the First World War a poet named Frank Wilmot (who wrote under the name Furnley Maurice) turned his revulsion at the conscription of young people into this poem.

    It was set to music in the mid 1950s by Chris Kempster, and when he sang it at a folk session thirty years later, this led to Miguel Heatwole writing an arrangement of it for the Solidarity Choir. That version is on the choir's CD "Ten Years Strong".

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 03:55 AM

When the coal blew away © Maurie Mulheron 1996

    Do you know how heavy the winds blow here?
    His smile was rising from ear to ear
    The old miner sat back, he'd a story that day
    About the time on the coast when the coal blew away

    All the mines around Bulli and further away
    Were being worked each week for only two to three days
    Just enough to stop them from getting the dole
    While the mine-owners secretly stockpiled the coal

    Chorus
    The winds were so heavy on the coast that day
    The winds were so heavy that the coal blew away!

    So the miners formed a strong picket line
    To try and stop the coal from leaving the mine
    From Sydney they trucked in the scabs each day
    With police on guard to keep the miners at bay

    With scabs loading coal by the railway track
    The miners stepped forward, the mood blacker than black
    The sergeant stood between them with a gun and a sneer
    I'll shoot the first Commie who tries to interfere!

    Chorus
    The winds were so heavy on the coast that day
    The winds were so heavy that the coal blew away!

    A fifty ton load was sent on its way
    Scheduled for Sydney the very next day
    The miners withdrew, full of anger, despair
    No victory this time, no hope in the air

    The train slowed down just near Waterfall
    The guard heard laughter and this is what he saw
    From a wagon some miners jumped onto the track
    With shovels, grins and faces smeared black

    Chorus
    The winds were so heavy on the coast that day
    The winds were so heavy that the coal blew away!

    With his lantern he searched up and down the train
    No coal could be seen, he searched in vain
    And the headlines in the paper read the very next day
    The winds were so heavy, the coal blew away!

    Now as you listen to my story today
    You might think it strange that coal could blow away
    But the miners with their shovels in the wagon that night
    Swear it is true and I reckon they're right

    Chorus
    The winds were so heavy on the coast that day
    The winds were so heavy that the coal blew away!

    Notes
    Maurie Mulheron writes
    "Great true story about a union victory down here in the Illawarra that occurred in September 1938 at the Old Corn Beef Mine. The story is told in the song. After the scabs had loaded the coal, 8 miners stowed away on the train and spent the next couple of hours shovelling out the scab coal onto the track as the train headed north to Sydney. The next day, when the police investigated, the Miners Federation explained to them that they knew nothing about the missing coal. By way of explanation, the union suggested that it could have been the heavy winds that had blown the night before! The "Bulli Times" ran a headline: "THE COAL THAT BLEW AWAY". By the way, after the coal had been shovelled off the train by the 'stowaway' miners, the Detective-Sergeant raced down to Thirroul the next day to interview the miners. An astute fellow, he visited Arthur McDonald, one of the miners. "Don't insult my intelligence," said the policeman, "by trying to make me believe that the bloody wind on the South Coast blew all that coal away. We think you bastards did it."

    Thanks to Maurie Mulheron for permission to use this song. Maurie is the author of One Word We a play about the life of Pete Seeger

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 04:20 AM

The Rodney © Dennis O'Keeffe 1992, tune After the Ball is Over

Once a young rouseabout, boiled a billy of tea,
He asked an old shearer, a story tell me please,
I'll tell you a story, but you must tell no-one,
Something my mates and I, in days gone by have done,

Once there was a captain, of a river boat,
With forty-five free labourers, on the Darling they did float,
The year was 1894, the strikes had just begun,
And shearers blood was being spilt, far worse than 91.

Chorus
After we burnt the Rodney, We danced on the river-bank,
There we played an old tune, until the Rodney sank,
Many a heart was happy, if you could only see,
We had a blood great bonfire,
The night we burnt the Rodney.

We did not like this captain, of him we had no fear,
To stations he'd been taking scabs, upon the river for years,
We'll take his boat the men all yelled, we'll teach this Captain Dickson,
So, wire stretched across the river, to the trees we started fixing.

But the Captain heard of out little game, and tied up miles below,
Through the mashes on the river-bank, running we did go,
Then swimming through the water, the men all followed me,
And in the darkness of the night, we climbed aboard the Rodney.

The Captain could not believe his eyes, to see us standing there,
With raddle painted faces, and mud smeared into our hair,
The crew we did not harm at all, but let them row away,
The scabs we left on an island, a small price they did have to pay.

Then we soaked the decks with kerosene, from stem to stern,
Then all us lads went ashore, and cheered as the Rodney burned,
No-one recognised us, they knew not who to blame,
So young man, you must tell no-one, Shear-Blade is my name.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 07:04 PM

Yay! Some good ones there, Sandra! R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 07:49 PM

I just went thru Mark's song list on Union Songs for songs I recognised.

You & Stewie would no doubt see other songs. It's a gold mine of songs.

sandra

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 08:04 PM

In a similar vein:

YUPPIETOWN
(Alistair Hulett)

People who live round here they don't have that much
They make do with things others wouldn't even touch
People who live round here they work in the factory
They don't have to choose they're ruled by necessity

Chorus:
And they better watch out
New breed taking over
Driving us out
Givin' us the old once over
They want to tear the place down
And turn it into Yuppietown

People who live round here remember how it used to be
Natter to yer neighbour on the street or stop in for a cup of tea
People who live round here they like to have a beer and all
But since the old pub changed hands you can't get in in overalls

People who live round here they're gonna have to move out west
Funny how the powers that be always think they know what's best
People who live round here they've got the place in such a state
People who live round here pull down the price of real estate

Youtube clip

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 08:40 PM

MONDAY'S EXPERTS
(Weddings, Parties, Anything)

Yeah yeah yeah
Do you see what I mean

Monday's experts
Always know what's best
Always tell you what you should've done
Monday's experts
Always know what's cooking
How the game was lost and how it could've been won

When Monday comes around
Everyone's an expert in my town
Monday's experts
Yeah yeah yeah
Monday's experts
Yeah yeah

Well I see them up the shops, I see them down the street
And when I go up the pub, it's nearly everyone I meet
They're saying I should've done this or I should've done that
But by the time they're finished talking, well my beers are getting flat

When Monday comes around
Everyone's an expert in my town
When Monday comes on by
Everyone's an expert to this guy
Well Tuesday, Wednesday, I don't mind
Thursday, Friday talking blind
Saturday, Sunday not so bad
Monday comes, it drives me mad

Monday's experts
Talking in the tearoom
In the workshop and the office, talking all around the place
Monday's experts
Hey they've always got the good oil
Pity you can't put a bet on at the finish of a race

When Monday comes around
Everyone's an expert in my town
When Monday comes on by
Everyone's an expert to this guy
When Monday comes along
Everyone's an expert on my song
Monday's experts
Yeah yeah yeah
Monday's experts
You see what I mean
Monday's experts
Yeah yeah
Monday's experts

Youtube clip

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 09:40 PM

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL
(Kev Carmody)

In 1788 down Sydney Cove?
The first boat people land
And they said, 'Sorry boys our gain’s your loss
We’re gonna steal your land
And if you break our new British laws
For sure you’re gonna hang
Or work your life like our convicts
With chains on your neck and hands'

Chorus:
And they taught us
Oh oh black woman thou shalt not steal
Oh oh black man thou shalt not steal
We’re gonna civilise
Your black barbaric lives
And teach you how to kneel
But your history couldn’t hide
The genocide
The hypocrisy to us was real
’Cause your Jesus said
You’re supposed to give the oppressed
A better deal
We say to you, yes whiteman thou shalt not steal
Oh ya our land you’d better heal

Your science and technology, hey you can make a nuclear bomb
Development has increased its size to three million megatons
If you think that’s progress
I suggest your reasoning is unsound
You shoulda found out long ago
You best keep it in the ground

Chorus

Me and Neil and Rednut
Sittin’ underneath that Indooroopilly Bridge
Watchin’ that blazin’ sun go down
Behind the tall tree’d mountain ridge
The land’s our heritage and spirit here
The rightful culture’s black
And we sittin’ here just wonderin’
When we gonna get the land back

Chorus

You talk of conservation
Keep the forest pristine green
Yet in two hundred years your materialism
Has stripped the forests clean
A racist’s a contradiction
That’s understood by none
Mostly their left hand holds a bible
Their right hand holds a gun

Chorus

Youtube clip

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 09:57 PM

BAPA
(G.Yunupingu)

Warwuyu ?arranha mulkana
?araku bapawu
?urununa gunipunharayu
ya..a, bäpa marrkapmirri

?athina wilawilayurruna
?uru?una djarrawalyurruna
liya-wayma Bekul?ura
ya..a bäpa marrkapmirri
m..m m..m m..m

?äthina Djotarra manda
garray Dhuwandjika Daylulu
?uru?una djarrapalwuyu
liya-wayma wä?a?ura Gunya?arri
m..m m..m m..m

------------------------------
[english translation]
Grief have taken hold of me
for my father
when the sun sets
o..h, beloved father

Crying and crying
when the sun goes down
my mind there at Bekulnura
o..h, beloved father
m..m m..m m..m

Two Gumatj ladies crying
ancestor boss ladies Dhuwandjika and Daylulu
when the sun sets
my mind there at the place Gunyanara (Bekulnura)
m..m m..m m..m

Youtube clip

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 03 Nov 20 - 10:40 PM

WIYATHUL
(G.Yunupingu)

Two scrub fowl crying out, looking for Guwalilna
the calls like woman crying, looking for Murrurnawu
the cries returning his mind to the jungles at Mutlwutjna

oh place Guwalilna, Warradika, Yumayna, m.m

Oh the old man cries, from the drink
oh dad Kamba-Djunadjuna, home Mayan-naraka bright in his mind
oh my two mums, beloved mums, hold Ruypu Milinditj
oh my two mums, beloved mums, cry for the sacred spring Burarrapu
oh the place Guwalilna, Warradika, Yumayna, m.m
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/wiyathul-wiyathul.html

Youtube clip

Most Darwin gardeners hate them, but the orange-footed scrubfowl is family to the Gamatj people.

Scrubfowl cry

The late Gurrumul Yunupingu was a Northern Territory treasure.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 04 Nov 20 - 06:09 PM

BLUE MURDER
(Alistair Hulett)

They said it’s easy money
In a full page ad in the local rag
Always nice and sunny
Come on lad and pack your bag
It’s off to West Australia
Leave the old hometown behind
Be a winner, not a failure
There’s money to be made in the Wittenoom mine

Chorus:
Day in, day out, everyday they drive us harder
Day in, day out, they’re getting away with blue murder

They took me to my quarters
A stinking bed in an old tin shed
Got my working orders
With a lamp and tin hat on my head

Chorus

My girl she’s a cook and a cleaner.
She works all day in the canteen hall
Six days since I’ve seen her.
Some don’t have no girl at all

Chorus

She sweeps the fine blue dust up
Tips it into an old wool pack
Never had a check-up
If she did, she’d get the sack

Chorus

I feel my health is failing
I work all day in the thick blue dust
The kids play in the tailings
The boss says work and work I must

Chorus

Youtube clip

Wittenoom

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 04 Nov 20 - 08:32 PM

SCOTS OF THE RIVERINA
(H.Lawson/A.Monsborough)

The boy cleared out to the city from his home at harvest time
They were Scots of the Riverina and to run from home was a crime
The old man burned his letters, the first and last he burned
And he scratched his name from the bible when the old wife’s back was turned

A year went past and another - there were calls from the firing-line
They heard the boy had enlisted, but the old man made no sign
His name must never be mentioned on the farm by Gundagai
They were Scots of the Riverina with ever the kirk hard by

The boy came home on his final, and the township’s bonfire burned
His mother’s arms were about him, but the old man’s back was turned
The daughters begged for pardon till the old man raised his hand
A Scot of the Riverina who was hard to understand.

The boy was killed in Flanders where the best and bravest die.
There were tears at the Graham homestead and grief in Gundagai
But the old man ploughed at daybreak and the old man ploughed till the mirk
There were furrows of pain in the orchard while his house-folk went to the kirk

The hurricane lamp in the rafters dimly and dimly burned
And the old man died at the table when the old wife’s back was turned
Face down on his bare arms folded, he sank with his wild grey hair
Outspread o’er the open bible and a name rewritten there

Youtube clip

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 05 Nov 20 - 12:07 AM

KILLING FLOOR

Michael Atkinson (Redgum 1975-87)


Joe spoke no English, but he had a dream, And he saved up most of his pay
To bring his wife and six kids from the Lebanon And settle down here to stay.

You could feel the prison of his loneliness, ‘Cause he wouldn't see them for years,
He kept brandy behind the compressed air tanks And gulped it when the coast was clear.

Nick the Greek collected tropical fish, But he had to be a character too,
So he smuggled in piranha just to break the law And fed them on kangaroo.

Bob's pride was his handlebar moustache, And he said he still combed out sand.
He pushed a tank through the Iraqi desert, So they made him the leading hand.

And the summer night shifts were long and cool, Charlie chain-smoked cigars,
Young David sweated in his speckled paint mask, As he gazed out at the stars.

Crazy Charlie was a Yugoslav, His old straight-eight Chevvy could move,
His ambition was live on a hippy commune When Dave told him about free love.

Fred had been a farmer, a heavyweight champ, He had hands like a stump-jump plough,
He could move the earth with the thrust of his arm, He was loading on paint line now.

And the boys made a noise every Friday night In the bar of the Hilton Hotel,
Downing pints and chewing the fat Till the 10 o'clock closing bell.

It was only rumour 'til the foreman came And hiding his shame with a cough
He said, "They're cutting back down to one shift now, We're gonna have to lay you off."

Joe held his gaze, gulped his brandy, And spat it out at his feet,
Bob stood bolt-still looking thunderstruck, Nick swore for an hour in Greek.

But their anger was spent in a rush of fire And then smouldered out of mind,
When they shook hands on that last grey day, Each was, in his way, resigned.

And a few days later I saw old Joe, He looked like he'd aged ten years,
Drunk on the tiles of the Stag Hotel, He couldn't hold back the tears.

Fred had talked of his grueling heavyweight bouts, I remembered what he’d said:
"There's no giving up on that killing floor, If you don't fight, you're dead."

If you work with your hands for your livelihood, Someday you might have to choose,
When the class war rages on the factory floor, If you don't fight, you lose.

If you work with your hands for your livelihood, Someday you might have to choose,
When the class war rages on the factory floor, If you don't fight, you lose.
If you don't fight, you lose.
If you don't fight, you lose.
If you don't fight, you lose.

Joe spoke no English, but he had a dream, And saved up most of his pay
To bring his wife and six kids from the Lebanon And settle down here to stay.


This song was on Redgum’s first 1978 album “If You Don’t Fight You Lose”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bL62Bx9zuE

”Nearly all of these characters were real. I worked with them over eight months on a production line on South Road.
I thought I made up the last line which, on our first interstate tours, we were later gratified to see grafitti-ed on hoardings and stations.
However, as some pedantic souls have pointed out, it was a subconscious Australian twist on Mao's `dare to struggle, dare to win'. – MA”

Here is a version by Qld’s Cloudstreet : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uAYXro5Hdw&list=PL5gZs9Q8fBmcAynUQQBjs_Jla8QaHQu3H&index=92


R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 05 Nov 20 - 01:39 AM

Queensland’s CLOUDSTREET, that fabulous duo of JOHN THOMPSON and NICOLE MURRAY, later joined by EMMA NIXON (making them a fabulous trio!), have had their YT presence updated of late – well worth checking out :

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTn_MPIJ6h1Cin2-8TUf5Cg/playlists

https://www.youtube.com/user/cloudstreetarts/videos


ENJOY their singing; the harmonies, musicianship, compositions, love of the folk tradition, - and their great sense of fun and joy that overflows in their love of performing : sure hope you’ve been able to see them Live!

Stewie posted “SCOTS of the RIVERINA” recently and so I’m adding a version by Cloudstreet : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ncVDPR3szI

Here also, is a version of Andy M.Stewart’s “The Valley of Strathmore”, which I add in here, not coz it’s Aussie or Kiwi, but coz I love the song (and we have lots of Scots-heritage folk Down Under (come to think of it – I’m One, haha!!) :   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KivCmk1ZPP0 It’s live, but from just where, I don’t know……
[ I recall watching John sing this at the last pre-Covid Maleny Music Festival and there was barely a dry eye in the hall. Um ..… surely it wasn’t just me?!! ]


R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 05 Nov 20 - 05:22 AM

another of Kevin Baker's thoughtful songs

ONE HAND’S THE BOSS'S by Kevin Baker

Back in the Sixties I travelled through Queensland
My wallet grew thin and I needed a job.
I talked to some workers at a pub up in Noosa
They said “Head on to Gladstone if you need a few bob".
When l hitched there the next day the sparkies were striking,
Two weeks they'd been out and the company stood firm.
They were drinking their savings and wives were complaining
And they knew they were beat if it went the full term.

CHORUS - But you don't compromise, not when safety's the issue,
A worker's no use if he's killed or he's maimed.
Your loved ones may grieve but the company won't miss you;
It's profits not workers they're out to maintain.

You could see the strike drift as it limped through the third week,
And Friday a vote took them back to the job
And a sparkie I'd met let me borrow his hardhat
So I'd pass on his pillion as one of their mob.
The Aluminium plant now was nearing completion
With work left with firms in a sub-contract role
And security guards taking orders from Kaiser
Were turning away those not on the payroll.

I walked the site roads, got a job as a Lagger;
Cutting asbestos patterns for the junctions of pipes.
And the sun and the sandflies were no less than brutal
As I sawed in a white cloud round a tin prototype.
Overtime and allowances made the pay worth it
Insulating sub-contract for the giant Kaiser Steel
But the work force was shrinking as contracts completed
And the power of the Unions they were bringing to heel.

CHORUS

Men came to depend on the work of each other
And friendships were formed in the pub and crib-room.
And everyone knew when the site claimed a victim
That none of us were from such outcomes immune.
And when the rains came and the crust of the lagging
Oozed a white milk that caused many a slip
The talk in the crib-room became agitated
If you slipped on the high pipes you were on a death trip.

Now Sandy and Joe they knew safety and Unions,
They called us together and the feeling was plain.
Some people spoke, others listened in silence
And we voted to no longer work in the rain.
And when the Boss came he kept talking of deadlines,
How each overdue day was costing him dear.
Some sympathised but nobody was budging;
We'd all slipped enough to be guided by fear.

The next day we found we had no Joe or Sandy
They'd been barred from the barracks transferred from the site.
The Company required them for new work in Brisbane
Where everyone knew they'd be sacked on the quiet.
And leaderless now we went over our options:
No job was safe and our work prospects tight.
And when the Boss came one by one the men drifted
Out where the lagging bled a juice milky white.

CHORUS

Lars was a rigger, he was crazy with courage;
He'd leap over gaps at a breathtaking height.
That morning the greasy wet rigging pro­pelled him
Down to the ground in a tumbling flight.
His death fall was broken on the back of a workmate
But he'd bounced off the vats and the pipes as he fell
And he screamed with the pain till the ambulance took him
Away from his friends to his own private hell.

That night I went round to the ward where they put him,
He was stupid with drugs but still squirming with pain.
He’d broken his back and his spleen had been ruptured
And they doubted he'd ever go rigging again.
One moment his ravaged face smiled recognition
Then I lost him as agony called him away.
The next week I left to return to the City
And the friends I made there I've not seen to this day.

CHORUS

Many years later I read in the paper
Of the killer Asbestos and the cancer it spawns.
And I thought about Lars and I hoped I was different;
That I'd left before I too was one of its pawns.
I remembered the white dust that clogged up my nostrils,
And working the high pipes with a Dutchman I'd known.
He had said "When you work where your life is in danger
Make one hand the Boss's but the other your own."

CHORUS

from his CD Riding the Wind. The Songs of Kevin Baker, Volume IV, 2004. & it has not been recorded. Thanks to Ralph for somehow getting the words from the jpg I sent him - via OCR I believe (she sez. uncertainly)

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 05 Nov 20 - 05:49 AM

YEA HO, LITTLE FISHY


There's a song in my heart for the one I love best
And her picture is tattooed all over my chest,

Ch.       Yea ho, little fishy, don't cry, don't cry,
             Yea ho, little fishy, don't cry, don't cry.

There are fish in the sea, there is no doubt about it
Just as good as the ones that have ever come out of it,

Little fish, when he's caught, he fights like a bull whale
As he threshes the water with his long narrow tail.

The ship's under way and the weather is fine
The captain's on the bridge hanging out other lines,

The crew are asleep, and the ocean's at rest
And I'm singing this song to the one I love best.


J.S. Manifold, in The Penguin Australian Song Book (vol 1), writes:

"A foc'sle song from the Queensland coast. A composite from versions printed in Singabout, Vol. 2, No. 4, and Vol. 3, No. 2 ...... The original sources were Dick Fizgerald of Charleville, and Jack Wright of Coogee."

The Provenance of this song is discussed on these two Mudcat threads and other versions given :
/mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=8689#54998   and   /mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=42677

The apparently Portuguese chune makes it a luvverly song to sing!! Here are Chloe & Jason Roweth at Sydney’s Humph Hall in 2010 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSo_GZ-HSiQ

I’ve included this one coz the singers’ve got the right name, haha!!! : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCWLCGJCSas      “A Portuguese lullaby that was sung by Manuel(Spencer Tracy) in the 1937 Captain's Courageous movie that was based on a Gloucester fishing schooner tragedy. This is our adaption of the lullaby. Sung by Audi and Peter SOUZA”
BtW, Fremantle in WA, has Portuguese fishermen in its history, along with many other European/Mediterranean peoples [https://fremantlestuff.info/fhs/fs/5/MaySally.html]; don’t know about their music though (anyone??)…..


R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 05 Nov 20 - 06:40 AM

SOLID ROCK, SACRED GROUND.
( Puli Kunpungka )

© 1982 Shane Howard
Pitjantjatjara Translation: © 2012 Trevor Adamson/Ruby James/Shane Howard/Jodi Martin

Out here nothing changes
Not in a hurry anyway
You can feel the endlessness
With the coming of the light of day
Talking about a chosen place
They want to sell it in the marketplace
Just a minute now

Ch.
Standin’ on solid rock
Standin’ on sacred ground
Livin’ on borrowed time
And the winds of change
Keep blowin’ down the line

’Round about the dawn of time
Dreaming all began
Proud people came
Livin’ in a promised land
Runnin’ from a heart of darkness
Searching for a heart of light
This could be paradise

CHORUS

Standin’ on the shore one day
Saw the white sails in the sun
Wasn’t long before you felt the sting
White man, white law, white gun
Don’t tell me that it’s justified
Cause somewhere, someone lied.....(Captain Cook lied)
It’s hard enough just to survive
Who’s that crying?
Genocide
But we’re getting stronger now, stronger now

Puli kunpungka ngaranyi
Manta miil-miilpa katu
Nyuntu kurangka ngaranyi
Walpa kampa kutjuparinyi
Walpa pulkaringanyi
Puli kunpungka ngaranyi
Manta miil-miilpa katu
Nyuntu wirungka ngaranyi
Walpa kampa kutjuparinyi
Walpa pulkaringanyi

Standin’ on solid rock
Standin’ on sacred ground
Livin’ on borrowed time
And the winds of change
Are blowin’ down the line.

https://www.facebook.com/goannafella/posts/d41d8cd9/10156094824594461/   (Shane H. correcting online lyrics)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqxX9YDL0tk     clip of Goanna fronted by a very youthful-looking Shane Howard(!) – Live at Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, 1983

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbAMtQQYcZ0    a 2016 version with Darlow and featuring Shane Howard.



R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: rich-joy
Date: 05 Nov 20 - 06:07 PM

C.Y.O’Connor, I Wish You Were Here

Carmel Charlton, 2002

Water was scarce, people couldn’t go on
Searching for gold in the blazing sun
Goldfields life was at its worst
Many died from typhoid, some died of thirst,
C Y O’Connor delivered a plan
To build a pipeline through rocks and sand
Helena River would be the start
Where water would flow to the goldfields heart.

Ch.
What would he say if he came back today that great engineer
Having no doubt his plan would work,
C Y O’Connor I wish you were here
To see water pumped from Mundaring Weir.

The longest pipe-line the world had seen
In by gone days it was just a dream
People said it couldn’t be done
But O’Connor and his men proved them wrong,
From Mundaring on through Southern Cross
Reaching the reservoir at Mt Charlotte
Days were long, rewards were few
Some-how they would see it
See it through.

Ch.
What would he say if he came back today that great engineer
Having no doubt his plan would work,
C Y O’Connor I wish you were here
To see water pumped from Mundaring Weir.

Came that memorable day in nineteen hundred and three
When water, clear water flowed endlessly
To O’Connor now we pay our due
He made that goldfields dream
Dream come true.

What would he say if he came back today that great engineer
Having no doubt his plan would work.

A final note made it clear, saying
“Put the wing walls to Helena Weir”
A final note made it clear, saying
“Put the wing walls to Helena Weir"
I wish you were here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv_6NdScCGY : "C.Y. O'Connor, I Wish You Were Here" by Carmel Charlton (who runs a Perth folkclub).


The "Kalgoorlie Pipeline" project (The Goldfields Water Supply Scheme) commenced in 1898 and was completed in January 1903, with the water being successfully pumped from Mundaring Weir in the Darling Ranges near Perth, to the Kalgoorlie/Coolgardie Goldfields, a distance of nearly 600kilometres.

An important story in WA's history; an amazing feat of engineering - and not the only one, in both Australia and New Zealand from the Irishman, Charles Yelverton O'Connor.
Pity he was driven to suicide (in March 1902) before he was proven unquestionably a hero.   More info in Mudcat thread : /mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=48647#4071699

Here is one story of the The Pipeline, : https://www.pipeliner.com.au/2016/03/16/water-pipeline-from-perth-to-kalgoorlie-1894-1903/ AND
"While some sections of the pipeline have been replaced in increments over the decades, more than 300 km of the original pipeline is still in service today." : https://www.pipeliner.com.au/2020/03/01/golden-age-pipeline-set-to-be-replaced/



R-J

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 05 Nov 20 - 07:20 PM

CATTLE GOING IN
(D.Braitling/T.Egan)

Cattle going in
From mulga scrub and saltbush plain
Cattle going in
We mustered them in dry and rain
Cattle going in
We're yarding cattle from the west
Swing wide the gates and draft the best
Let down the rails and 'bush' the rest
Cattle going in

Cattle going in
At break of day we loaded up
Cattle going in
Now road trains roll, the last is gone
Cattle going in
Red clouds rise, they seem to burn
Behind the big wheels as they churn
The ancient desert dust astern
Of cattle going in

Cattle going in
With MTD on every hide
Cattle going in
There's open country every side
Of cattle going in
Two hundred miles or more to go
Through hills and creeks where gumtrees grow
No time to camp or take a blow
With cattle going in

Cattle going in
The big trucks sway along the tracks
With cattle going in
The dust falls thick upon the backs
Of cattle going in
Motors turning sweet and right
Southern Cross clear and bright
And silent drivers ride the night
With cattle going in

Cattle going in
The shades of old time drovers stare
At cattle going in
Their ghostly horses snort and glare
At cattle going in
Road trains roaring overland
Their drivers couldn't understand
The months it took that banished band
With cattle going in

MTD: on Northern Territory cattle stations, all registered brands must be of 3 letters one of which must be 'T' for 'Territory'. 'MTD' is the registered brand of Mt Doreen Station, 420 km north-west from Alice Springs. Doreen Braitling, who wrote the words of 'Cattle Going In', is the 'Doreen' after whom the station is named. Ted Egan composed the music. The singer in this YT clip is Nerys Evans, Ted's partner.

Youtube clip

Doreen Braitling

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 05 Nov 20 - 07:57 PM

MY ISLAND HOME
(Neil Murray)

Six years I've been in the desert
And every night I dream of the sea
They say home is where you find it
But will this place ever satisfy me
For I come from the saltwater people
We always lived by the sea
Now I'm out here west of Alice Springs
With a wife and a family

And my island home
My island home
My island home is a waiting for me

In the evenin' the dry wind blows from the hills and across the plain
I close my eyes and I'm standin' in a boat on the sea again
And I'm holding that long turtle spear
And I feel I'm close now to where it must be
And my island home is a waitin' for me

For I come from the saltwater people
We always lived by the sea
Now I'm out here west of Alice Springs
With a wife and a family
And my island home
My island home
My island home is a waiting for meh

In the evenin' the dry wind blows from the hills and across the plain
I close my eyes and I'm standin', in a boat on the sea again
And I'm holdin' that long turtle spear
And I feel I'm close now, to where it must be
And my island home is a waitin' for me

My Island Home came to me on a bus one night in June 1985. I had been living in the deserts of Central Australia for some six years. I had spent a week with our singer, George, at his home at Galiwinku in Arnhem Land. We camped on a remote part of the island with his family and had been living like kings on bush tucker and seafood caught by ourselves. I had to leave and make trips to Melbourne and Sydney in mid-winter to promote the band. I suffered an exceptional longing to be back in a boat on a tropical sea. The words came to me. I had no notebook with me. I held on to the tune till I got to Sydney and pulled my guitar out of the luggage to find the chords. Neil Murray.

Youtube clip

George Burarrwanga

Galiwinku

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Mudcat Songbook - Australia
From: Stewie
Date: 06 Nov 20 - 08:58 PM

DIGGER’S FAREWELL
(Anon/Colqhoun)

Just as you say sir - I'm off once more
The Palmer River, that's my way
I landed here in sixty-four
That's ten years' struggle along the Grey

Ten long years since I landed here
In a trackless land of wet and cold
Some of our lives were pretty severe
But who lacks hardship looking for gold?

Latterly gold has been hard to find
I've enough to carry - none to spend
I'm going away and leaving behind
Not one deserving the name of friend

Now the gold was pretty near duffering out
When Bill - that's me mate - he says to me
There's gold on the Palmer beyond all doubt
So here's for sailing out over the sea

There’s the whistle - a drink before I start
A step to the corner, I hear you say?
My last on the coast - with all my heart
A brandy straight and then I'm away

Here's a long farewell to the old West Coast
And a heart prepared for whatever I find
‘Success to the Palmer’ - is that your toast?
Mine's - ‘Here's to the land I leave behind!’

The poem was published in ‘The Grey River Argus’, a newspaper on the west coast of NZ’s South Island in 1874. When gold workings petered out on the west coast, many diggers headed for the Palmer River in Australia. The ‘whistle’ was the boarding call.

Youtube clip

--Stewie.