On The Wallaby

©Henry Lawson

        Ray Wales, of Perth, Australia, brought me this song on a tape many years ago. He knew nothing about the song or the singer. Ray went back to Australia, the tape got lost, but I remembered the song pretty accurately, it turns out. Emily Friedman, of Chicago, finally tracked the song down, with the help and kindness of the brilliant Austrlian story-teller, Kel Watkins, who not only found the original rendition I had heard, but taped that and a reading of Lawson's original bush ballad for us. Emily believes the original was shortened for singing by a Peter Dicky, and the version I heard is beautifully sung by Dave De Hugard, with concertina accompaniment. My Thanks to everyone involved. I give the text here the way De Hugard sang it; the differences in these (1) on the track
(2) swagmen
(3) bread makings
(4) pan for tea
(5) pipe
(6) lost
(7) blanket roll

The tentpoles are rotten and me campfire's dead,
And the 'possoms may ramble in the trees overhead.
I'm out on the Wallaby I'm humping me drum, ( 1)
And I come down the road where the Sundowners come. (2)

It 's Northwest by West over ranges afar
To the place where the cattle and the sheep stations are
With the sky for me roof and the earth for me bunk,
And a calico bag for me damper and my junk, ( 3)
And it's scarcely a comrade me memory reveals,
Though the spirit still lingers in me toe and my heels.

My tent is all torn and my blankets are damp·
And the fast-rising floodwaters flow down by the camp.
The cold water rises in jets from the floor
And I lie in my bed and I listen to it roar
And I think of tomorrow, how me footsteps will lag
As I tramp beneath the weight of a rain-sodden swag.

But the way of a swagman is mostly uphill,
Though there's joy to be found on the Wallaby still
When the day has gone by with its tramp and its toil
And your campfire you build and your billy you can boil (4)
And there's comfort at least in the bowl of your clay (5)
Or the yarn of a mate who is tramping that way.

But beware of the cities where it's poisoned for years
And beware of the dangers in drinking long beers.
When the bushman gets bushed (6) in the streets of the town,
When he's lost all his friends and his cheques are knocked down,
Well he's right 'til his pockets are empty and then
He waltzes old bluey (7) up the country again.

On The Wallaby is recorded on the CD A Rogue's Gallery of Songs for 12-String