When shearing comes,
lay down your drums
Step on the board your brand new chum
With a rod and a roo and
a rub -a -dub -dub
Send you home in a lime -juice tub
Because you've crossed the
briny deep
Fancy you can shear a sheep
With a rod and a roo and
a rub -a -dub -dub
Send you home in a lime -juice tub
There's brand new
chums and cocky sons
Fancy that they're all great guns
Fancy they can shear the wool,
The beggars can only tear and
pull.
They tar the sheep till they're
nearly black,
Roll up, roll up and get the sack,
Once more they're away on the wallaby track,
Once more to look for the shearer know.
And when they meet upon the road,
Off their back throw down their load,
And at the sun they'll take a look,
Sayin' reckon it's time
to dress the cook.
We camp in huts without neat doors,
Sleep upon the dirty floor,
A bannock and a flower and a sheet of bark,
To wallop up a damper in the
dark.
You cockatoos, you never need fret,
For to show you up I'm game to bet.
I'm the man that'll never forget,
you're over your head, heels
first in debt
You're over your head, your neck as well,
your daughters'll wear no crinolines
Nor are they troubled with boots and shoes,
they're wild in the bush with a kangaroo
It's home, it's home I'd like to be,
not coming me from in this country
Sixteen thousand mile I've come,
to march along with a blanket drum you