|
On a back block down |
|
Salisbury |
|
Plains Ted was born in 1895 |
|
Thrust from the loins on to rusty soil |
|
And the cord was cut with a scythe |
|
He said "People there are city folk today And they couldn't tell shit from clay A ripening crop of stobie poles There's no regrets when the memory roams That earth is in me bones" |
|
Did his bit in the first |
|
World War |
|
Took the shilling to fight the |
|
Hun Mud up to his crotch in |
|
Flanders fields |
|
And the gas eating out his lungs |
|
He said "Me best mate died hanging on the barbed wire And when the attack was through We took some prisoners to HQ And shared a fag and a yarn or two They were the same as me and you" |
|
And I asked old |
|
Ted what history meant |
|
As he sharpened his hedging shears "What a bloody fool question that is my boy I lived it for 83 years" |
|
See him every year on |
|
Anzac Day |
|
Swilling beers down at the |
|
Rex Hotel |
|
He'd laugh with his mates and go deep in thought |
|
Where he went even he couldn't tell |
|
He said "King and Country, cock'n'bull We fought just to survive The anger might have faded still this feeling grabs me deep inside I guess you could call it pride" |
|
As a navvy on the line in the |
|
Nullabor The |
|
Depression left its scars |
|
Heaving cold steel rails in the burning sun |
|
And freezing beneath the stars |
|
He said "If you escaped the susso queues You had a hell of price to pay And when time flowed like an open wound I'd blow me dough on a Saturday And drink the pain away" |
|
On Sunday arvo he'd sit and talk |
|
Over a dozen cold |
|
West End Of what was gained and what was lost |
|
And would never come again |
|
He said "Money you know it comes and goes On booze and rent and fags You can make a fortune on overtime And lose it all on the nags But years of toil with a bunch of mates You know it leaves you satisfied Though we never moved a mountain We sure gave it a try" |
|
Pick the wheat from the chaff |
|
And the steel from the scurf |
|
And the honest man from the liar |
|
If wisdom came by other names |
|
Ted was earth and fire |
|
On the day that old |
|
Ted died No-one would have known |
|
Buried in a pauper's grave |
|
He lived and died alone |
|
And the 727s roared overhead |
|
Withe the drone of the angry roads |
|
There seemed a pause for just a while |
|
And the silence was heard around for miles |
|
And the silence was heard for miles |
