Lyr Req: The Pub with No Beer -- extra verses

Subject: Part two of Pub With No Beer
From:
Date: 26 Feb 99 - 08:13 PM

Back in 1964, I heard a part two (verses 6 onwards)of the Pub with no Beer. I would like to get the words. Can anyone hep?

Subject: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From:
Date: 13 Mar 99 - 01:19 PM

I have the first five verses of PWNB, but I know there are some extra verse that I heard on an LP called "Aussie Sing-Song". Can anyone tell me how to get the extra verses.

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 13 Mar 99 - 10:07 PM

G'day,
Click here. I found this by entering [pub with no beer] (with the square brackets) into the search box near the top right of the screen.

Some corrections: It's usually sung here without a chorus - the chorus shown is sung as the first & last verses. The last line of verse 2: "As the barman says sadly...". Last verse: "Old Billy the blacksmith..."

Or you could replace that last verse with this:

Old Harold the cobbler, the first time in his life
Has gone to bed sober with his darling wife
The missus says, "Harold! you are acting queer"
And they'll call for the midwife about April next year.

(New verse by Alan Foster)

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From:
Date: 14 Mar 99 - 12:27 PM

Alan, thanks for the extra verse.

I already have these verses, but I know that there are others that appeared on an LP (big black things) in the early 60's. I remember one verse as follows

Broken down on the track, cause she's stripped every gear Lies the old grey Blitz wagon - the one with the beer "Where's Billy the blacksmith, we could do with him here?" But Bill's moved onto Grafton, where the brewery stand near.

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 15 Mar 99 - 01:56 AM

G'day,

That last verse sounds suspiciously like it could have come from the original poem, published in a Queensland paper, 1 January 1944 (after the Battle of the Coral Sea had been won and victory celebrations consumed every drop of rationed beer) by Paddy Sheahan.

The song is just a quick re-edit and reduction by Gordon Parsons, who then pinched half of Stephen Foster's Beautiful Dreamer for a tune.

I'll dig out the original 1944 words (published back in the 1960s in Singabout magazine and probably in my anthology Singabout - Selected Reprints)and you can mine them for extra verses.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: Lyr Add: A PUB WITHOUT BEER
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 01:35 AM

G'day again,

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

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

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

A PUB WITHOUT BEER

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

A PUB WITHOUT BEER

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

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

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

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

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

Ingham, 1944. Dan Sheehan

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: rich-joy
Date: 17 Jul 02 - 09:58 AM

Just found a copy of Dan Sheahan's "Songs from the Canefields" - revised edition - first published 1972 and reprinted 1986 - compiled and published by Josephine R. Sheahan, Dan's daughter-in-law.

The last line of verse 3 of "The Pub Without Beer" (see last posting by Bob Bolton) is down as :
"And I feel all alone in a pub without beer"

Dan came to Australia from Dalwogan, Ireland in 1905, according to the preface.

Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: The Nfkfiddler
Date: 17 Jul 02 - 02:42 PM

Have you this one?

"Then the Blacksmith comes in With his dry dusty throat He walks up to the bar pulls a wad from his coat But the smile on his face quickly turns to a snear As the barman says sadly The pubs gots no beer."

I also seem to recall one verse ending " Its no place for a dog in.........................."

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 12:12 AM

G'day,

rich-joy: I scanned in the words as printed in the 1960 Singabout and I don't have Dan Sheehan's book to compare ... There may have been a substitution of the song version for Dan's ... inadvertent or otherwise ... but I don't think the 1960 editor is still around for me to check with.

The Nfkfiddler: I remember the verse you quote ... and I think it was, pretty well, a 4-line rewrite of Dan's second stanza. I also remember hearing the "blitz wagon" verse quoted in the (anonymous) third post. I would be sure that dates from after Dan's 1944 version, since "blitz wagons" (let alone real German Blitz brand wagons) did not become available until they were sold of as war surplus after WW II.

It may well be that Gordon Parsons's version has a lot of additional local verses (note the reference to Grafton, in NSW, ... a hell of a long way from Ingham, Queensland) that named some of his fellow drinkers at the Taylors Arms pub ( a lot closer to Grafton). I don't know how many of them survived into a tidy record-sized (~3 minutes) song, as demanded by the recording industry of the 1950s.

I do have a CD of a 'bootlegged' recording (made on a wire recorder and copied onto acetate LP discs!) of a 1956 "Slim Dusty Show" in Townsville, Queensland ... and Gordon Parsons sings The Pub With No Beer on that. I'll have a listen through to see if there are any extra verses ... but I seem to remember that it is does not run all that long ... so it may be already trimmed down to a standard performance length.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: Hrothgar
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 07:58 AM

They would have had plenty of time to run out of beer between the Battle of the Coral Sea and January 1944.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE PUB WITH NO BEER
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 08:21 AM

G'day again,

Hrothgar: Yeah ... well, if you look at the Singabout article, you'll see that the poem was actually printed as "part of a feature called ON THE TRACK by Bill Bowyang". I presume the verses had already been circulating locally and were picked up by "Bill Bowyang" for the column. I tried the link given by Alan of Australia, but could not get to the words he found in 1999 ... so here are the words. These are pretty well the earliest Gordon Parsons ones, since they come from his singing, on the CD made from a bootlegged acetate 12" disc of "The Slim Dusty Show" at the Theatre Royal, Townsville ... some time in 1956. Slim comments, in the notes, on realising that he had changed Gordon's words a bit since then.

The Pub with no Beer
As sung by Gordon Parsons, Townsville, 1956

It's lonesome away from your kindred and all
By the campfire at night, where the wild dingoes call
But there's nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear
Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer.

The publican's anxious for the quota to come.
There's a faraway look on the face of the bum.
The maid's gone all cranky. The cook's acting queer.
What a terrible place is a pub with no beer.

Then the stockman rides in, with his dry dusty throat
Breasts up to the bar; pulls a wad from his coat;
But the smile on his face quickly turns to a sneer
As the barman says sadly; "The pub's got no beer."

The the swaggy strolls in, covered in dust and flies;
Goes up to the bar, wipes the sweat from his eyes
But when he is told, he says; "What's this I hear?
I've trudged thirty flamin' miles to a pub with no beer."

Old Billy the blacksmith, the first time in his life
Has gone home cold sober to his darling wife.
He walks in the kitchen; she says; "you're early, my dear" -
Then he breaks down and he tells her that the pub's got no beer.

So it's lonesome away from your kindred and all
By the campfire at night where the wild dingoes call
But there's nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear
Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer.


The extra verse supplied by the (anonymous) first poster, in 1999, is definitely familiar to me. I'm sure that I have heard this verse ... some time in the 1950s ... or the early '60s!. I suspect it was in a longer version of the song ... one in which Gordon Parsons sang about specific friends at the Taylor Arm Hotel, since it has a reference to Grafton, as a larger town (with a brewery!) - and not far from Taylors Arm.

Broken down on the track, cause she's stripped every gear
Lies the old grey Blitz wagon - the one with the beer
"Where's Billy the blacksmith, we could do with him here?"
But Bill's moved onto Grafton, where the brewery stand near.


Nfkfiddler's verse is actually the one that starts: "Then the stockman rides in, with ..." and it may be that Nfkfiddler has mis-remembered it, confusing the blacksmith with the stockman - or it may have been sung that way by someone else.

The line ending: " Its no place for a dog ..." is another that I seem to remember from a frighteningly long time ago. It may be an alternative ending to the second stanza of Gordon Parsons's version ... or it may belong to another of the verses trimmed off get the song down to the standard length ... The 1956 version runs a very tight 3' 03" ... even though it is sung in a live concert!

BT: rich-joy: Could you check something else for me in your copy of Songs from the Canefields? Jason Roweth, of the NSW group Us Not Them asks about a song they do, set from Dan Sheahan's words to a tune by Denis Kevans. The title they have been using is From a trench in France, but Denis calls it The Sleeper-Cutters' Camp, the titles coming from, respectively, the first line and the final lines.

Can you identify this one in the book -if, indeed, it is there ... since it is an earlier poem written while he was serving in the First World War? Us Not Them hope to record the song , and they would prefer to get all the details right, if possible.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: Snuffy
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 09:17 AM

The version the Dubliners recorded is virtually word for word the 1956 Townsville version above, but the swaggy verse is replaced by:

There's a dog on the v'randah, for his master he waits
But the boss is inside, drinking wine with his mates
He cowers with terror and he cringes with fear
It's no place for a dog, in a pub with no beer

I'm not totally sure about that third line, I'll check it when I get home.

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: JennieG
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 09:01 PM

Snuffy, the line I remember is
He hurries for cover and he cringes with fear
It's no place for a dog round a pub with no beer.
Jeez you can tell a person's age by the verses they remember can't you!
Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: Snuffy
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 08:52 AM

"Hurries for cover" it is, Jennie. I tell my age by the verse I can't remember

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 09:29 AM

G'day Snuffy and JennieG,

That is another verse I (dimly) remember ... all probably come from a Gordon Parsons ... sing it in the Taylor Arms pub version ... before "trim it down to 3 minutes ... or we can't record it". (Gord! If they had CDs back then, we might have a 60 minute version that listed evryone that ever drank with Gordon Parsons>)

(Hmmm ... did 45 rpm single only go for 3 minutes as well ...?) ... I don't have one to check with, these days.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: rich-joy
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 09:47 AM

Now THAT'S Odd ~ I posted to this thread about an hour ago - even checked that it was all OK afterwards - and now I'm not listed - what gives???!!!

Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: GUEST,.
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 11:46 AM

Invisible one
How is it done?

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 04:01 PM

Dan Aguiar of the X-Seamen used to sing this one with great regularity.

As far as not posting, sometimes if you return to the chat menu too quickly, you may lose the posting along the way. Just look at the thread before you go off line. If your posting is not there, use the back arrow and repost (which is what we fencers call a good response that leads to a point).

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: rich-joy
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 10:11 PM

Thanks for that advice!!!
I'm beginning to wonder if I imagined it - I was so tired last night - but I usually make a point of going back into a thread to check every posting (in case something embarressing has happened!!) - now I can't even be sure I did that on this tired occasion. ANYWAY. I'll re-post my thoughts now :

Hi Bob! That poem (4 verses) is certainly in "Songs from the Canefields" as "The Sleeper-Cutters' Camp". The preamble says : "The following was written at Messines, France, in June 1917 and posted to Australia but was banned by the Censor, and now sees print for the first time. D.S."

There is also a pome entitled : "How "The Pub Without Beer" Was Written" - guess I should post that too!! (here's hoping I don't get cut off, as is common, though ...)

Cheers! R-J

Subject: Lyr Add: HOW 'THE PUB WITH NO BEER' CAME TO BE...
From: rich-joy
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 10:28 PM

here goes :

HOW "THE PUB WITH NO BEER" CAME TO BE WRITTEN
Dan Sheahan, Queensland

One day in the town at the time of the blitz -
So dry I was spitting out threepenny bits -
I went to the Pub and I called for a "pot"
But I found that the yankees had gobbled the lot.

The boss was laid out on his favourite chair
And writ on his dial was a look of despair -
Madam and young "Flossie" looked languid and faint
All gone was the glamour, the powder and paint.

The yard man had left with a rope and a knife
Reports had come in he had taken his life -
The cook and the slushie were out at the back
They both had gone down to a nervous attack.

Old Billy the hum he lay under a tree -
The poor fellow "had it" 'twas easy to see -
He was not improving 'twas just the reverse
We'd soon see him sailing away in a hearse.

The dog with a sorrowful look on his face
Kept moping and mooning all over the place -
He sat on his tail and he looked up at me
And started to wail like an Irish Banshee.

I raced to the water and turned the tap -
And drank as I swore at the Hun and the Jap -
Sez I to myself "better get out of here -
What good is a town where the Pub has no beer."

Cheers RJB

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 11:35 AM

G'day rich-joy,

Thanks for the info ... I'll pass that on to Jason Roweth - and I'm sure I can offer thanks from him, as he likes to get credits right!

Thanks also for Dan Sheahan's How "The Pub Without Beer" Came to be Written. It's interesting that this is in 4-line stanzas ... is there a date indicated for its composition?

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: rich-joy
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 09:08 PM

Hi Bob, sorry, no date - it just comes on the page after "The Pub Without Beer" ... "The Sleeper-Cutters' Camp" was mentioned in the preface as one of his earliest poems though ...

Well, I'd better go and start my B.A.S. (amazing how many things one can find to do, rather than the things that MUST be done ASAP, ain't it??!!)

Chhers! R-J

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 10:07 PM

G'day rich-joy,

OK - thanks for that as well ... I was wondering if Dan might have written it by way of making his claim for the original words, and thus, after the appearance Gordon Parsons's version ... a date would have been nice!

I do remember getting a letter (probably from Josephine) some years back ... late '80s I suspect ... about a local festival in the Ingham, Queensland, area celebrating Dan's poetry (and his role in the origon of The Pub With No Beer). I ran the date in Mulga Wire ... but it was a bit far to go ... from Sydney!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 21 Jul 02 - 05:35 AM

Perhaps someone in the UK should write a version called "The Pub with no PEL" - after all, it might be the music we're running out of !

Subject: RE: Help pse - Extra verses for Pub with no beer
From: Gareth
Date: 21 Jul 02 - 07:18 AM

OK Dave, yer asked for it :-

It's silent away from your kindred and all
By the bar of a night, where the Jobsworth's call
There's nothing so lonesome, or so like hell
Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no PEL

The publican's anxious for license to come.
The crowd are all thirsty, and acting Schtum
The jukebox' gone cranky. Karaoke is hell.
What a terrible place is a pub with no PEL.

The troubadour walks in, with his finely tuned throat
Breasts up to the bar; pulls a flute from his coat;
But the smile on his face quickly turns to a sneer
As the barman says sadly; "You can't play here."

The singer rolls in, covered in dust and flies;
Goes up to the bar, wipes the sweat from his eyes
But when he is told, he says; "What's this you tell?
I've come seventy miles to a pub with no PEL."

There's a dog under the table, for shut tap he waits
But the boss is all quiet, can't sing with his mates
He cowers with terror, for it's a doggy hell
It's no place for a dog, in a pub with no PEL

It's lonesome away from your kindred and all
In a Pub in the country, where the little birdies call
But there's nothing so stupid, so we will tell.
Cos that avian chorus requires no PEL

Gareth

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Pub with No Beer -- extra verses
From: GUEST,Dan Aguiar
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 12:44 PM

I first learned the song from one of Slim Dusty's albums, but I always felt it cried out for a regularly repeated chorus. I remembered a sign I once saw in an old run-down gin mill (I think it was in Jersey) that said "There's no place like this place, any place around here. So this must be the place!" And that easily transformed into the following chorus sung to the last two lines of the regular verse basically:

There's no place like this place any place around here,
There's no place at all like a pub with no beer!"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Pub with No Beer -- extra verses
From: EBarnacle
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 01:32 PM

I consider myself fortunate that many years ago, after having heard Dan sing PWNB, I picked up a copy of that edition of Singabout from Izzy Young's place. The cover alone was worth the price.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Pub with No Beer -- extra verses
From: GUEST,Andy O'Brian
Date: 09 Feb 17 - 02:16 AM

...and the driver stands back, just a scratchin his ear
he knows just what they're thinkin at the pub with no beer

Then the drover rides back, with a brilliant idea
He rides hard in the saddle, til the town's drawing near...

...when the boys rode back in, what a strange sight they made
They rode into the town like, the old light brigade
With tow rope and tackle, they all pulled as one
And the old blitz moved faster than she ever had done

Soon they rolled in the kegs, one was placed on the bar
And they filled all the glasses,every jug and each jar....

....and there was laughter once more in the pub with no beer

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Pub with No Beer -- extra verses
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 17 - 02:29 AM

Above are the bits I can remember from "another version" of this song

it started with

...As the hills roll away from a small country town

The verse about the blitz wagon having stripped every gear was it it too

I'm sure it was also sung by Slim Dusty - 7" single with a dark blue label