Lyr Add: Clancy of The Overflow (Banjo Paterson)

Subject: Lyr Add: Clancy of The Overflow
From: Monologue John
Date: 17 Oct 22 - 03:29 PM

Clancy of the Overflow by Banjo Patterson

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just 'on spec', addressed as follows, 'Clancy, of The Overflow'.
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
'Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are.'
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving 'down the Cooper' where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of 'The Overflow'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Clancy of The Overflow (Banjo Paterson)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Oct 22 - 04:41 PM

thanks for posting the lyrics, I've had a lovely time going down this rabbit hole

sung by Wallis & Matilda

Wikipedia - Wallis & Matilda

Wikipedia - Clancy of the Overflow ... The poem is written from the point of view of a city-dweller who once met the title character, a shearer and drover, and now envies the imagined pleasures of Clancy's lifestyle ... In 1897, Thomas Gerald Clancy wrote a poem in reply to "Clancy of the Overflow", entitled "Clancy's Reply", which paints a far less romantic picture of the life of a drover.[1][5] There had also been a parody in 1892, "The Overflow of Clancy".

Wikipedia - The Overflow of Clancy

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Overflow of Clancy, parody 1892
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Oct 22 - 04:50 PM

The Overflow of Clancy - full text Appeared in 20 August 1892 edition of "The Bulletin", part of the Australian Bush satires

(On reading the Banjo's "Clancy of the Overflow")

I've read "The Banjo's" letter, and I'm glad he's found a better
Billet than he had upon the station where I met him years ago;
He was "slushy" then for Scotty, but the "bushland" sent him "dotty,"
So he "rose up, William Riley," and departed down below.

He "rolled up" very gladly, for he had bush-fever badly
When he left "the smoke" to wander "where the wattle-blossoms wave,"
But a course of "stag and brownie" seems to make the bush-struck towny
Kinder weaken on the wattle and the bushman's lonely grave.

Safe in town, he spins romances of the bush until one fancies
That it's all top-boots and chorus, kegs of rum and "whips" of grass,
And the sheep off camp go stringing when the "boss-in-charge" is singing,
Whilst we "blow the cool tobacco-smoke and watch the white wreaths pass."

Yet, I guess "The B." feels fitter in a b'iled shirt and "hard-hitter"
Than he would "way down the Cooper" in a flannel smock and "moles,"
For the city cove has leisure to indulge in stocks of pleasure,
But the drover's only pastime's cooking "What's this! on the coals."

And the pub. hath friends to meet him, and between the acts they treat him
While he's swapping "fairy twisters" with the "girls behind their bars,"
And he sees a vista splendid when the ballet is extended,
And at night he's in his glory with the comic-op'ra stars.

I am sitting, very weary, on a log before a dreary
Little fire that's feebly hissing 'neath a heavy fall of rain,
And the wind is cold and nipping, and I curse the ceaseless dripping
As I slosh around for wood to start the embers up again.

And, in place of beauty's greeting, I can hear the dismal bleating
Of a ewe that's sneaking out among the marshes for her lamb;
And for all the poet's skitin' that a new-chum takes delight in,
The drover's share of pleasure isn't worth a tinker's d--n.

Does he sneer at bricks and mortar when he's squatting in the water
After riding fourteen hours beneath a sullen, weeping sky?
Does he look aloft and thank it, as he spreads his sodden blanket?
For the drover has no time to spare, he has no time to dry.

If "The Banjo's" game to fill it, he is welcome to my billet;
He can "take a turn at droving" -- wages three-and-six a-day --
And his throat'll get more gritty than mine will in the city
Where with Mister Lawson's squashes I can wash the dust away.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Clancy's Reply
From: cnd
Date: 18 Oct 22 - 07:56 AM

Interesting. I always find these back-and-forth songs phenomenally petty but interesting. Here's Clancy's Reply

CLANCY'S REPLY

’Neath the star-spangled dome
Of my Austral home,
When watching by the camp fire’s ruddy glow,
Oft in the flickering blaze
Is presented to my gaze
The sun-drenched kindly faces
Of the men of Overflow.

Now, though years have passed forever
Since I used, with best endeavour
Clip the fleeces of the jumbucks
Down the Lachlan years ago,
Still in memory linger traces
Of many cheerful faces,
And the well-remembered visage
Of the Bulletin’s “Banjo”.

Tired of life upon the stations,
With their wretched, scanty rations,
I took a sudden notion
That a droving I would go;
Then a roving fancy took me,
Which has never since forsook me,
And decided me to travel,
And leave the Overflow.

So with maiden ewes from Tubbo,
I passed en route to Dubbo,
And across the Lig’num country
where the Barwon waters flow;
Thence onward o’er the Narran,
By scrubby belts of Yarran,
To where the landscape changes
And the cotton bushes grow.

And my path I’ve often wended
Over drought-scourged plains extended,
where phantom lakes and forests
Forever come and go;
And the stock in hundreds dying,
Along the road are lying,
To count among the “pleasures”
That townsfolk never know.

Over arid plains extended
My route has often tended,
Droving cattle to the Darling,
Or along the Warrego;
Oft with nightly rest impeded,
When the cattle had stampeded,
Save I sworn that droving pleasures
For the future I’d forego.

So of drinking liquid mire
I eventually did tire,
And gave droving up forever
As a life that was too slow.
Now, gold digging, in a measure,
Affords much greater pleasure
To your obedient servant,
“Clancy of the Overflow.”

(via https://www.australianculture.org/clancys-reply-1897/)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Clancy of The Overflow (Banjo Paterson)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Oct 22 - 08:32 AM

thanks for completing the sequence

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Clancy of The Overflow (Banjo Paterson)
From: GerryM
Date: 18 Oct 22 - 04:59 PM

Surely the time has come for our man to visit Bondi and be celebrated as Clancy of the Undertow?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Clancy of The Overflow (Banjo Paterson)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Oct 22 - 05:28 PM

get writing, Gerry!