The Old Men (1929)
Now in nearly every paper that you hap to gaze upon,
You will see where someone reckons that the good old men are gone;
That the old-timers have vanished but I've got this to say :
There are plenty of old-timers in the far out-back to-day.
But to see them Mister Writer you must come out to the bush,
Then I will introduce you to the real old-time push ;
So pack your duds to-morrow, take a ticket to Outback,
Then you and I will hunt together old battlers on the track.
We will buy a few good horses and a pack saddle or two,
We will steer along the stock routes Nor' west of the Barcoo;
We will cross the Thompson River, strike the Flinders watershed,
While the sky will be our cover and the ground will be our bed.
And as we wander on our way through all those northern tracks,
You shall see them as you travel with their swags upon their backs;
An odd one may be lucky if he owns a pair of nags,
As most of them own nothing but their swags and tucker bags.
And so they'll wander onward till the "knock-off" whistle blows,
But to all old men I "dips my lid," with these few lines I'll close;
So pack your duds to-morrow, take a ticket to Outback,
Then you and I will hunt together old battlers or the track.
Richmond. STATION HAND.
Notes
From the Queensland Newspaper the Northern Miner 7 Sep 1929 p. 7.Songs like this one are much more common right through the Great Depression than has formerly been recognised, but a number of Australian Newspapers ensured their popularity in those tough times.
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