Tom: C
Introdução:
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He was a sailor
D Em
Swarthy lean and proud
C G
He could take a schooner through a big sea swell
Am D
Aloof in the mainland crowd
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She loved his quiet laughter
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Like a boy he'd shrug and grin
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Beach stretched wide at Port Mackay
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With dreams upon the wind
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He wore her name in a rose tattoo
C G Am
Long weekends of gins and lime
C G D Em
She lived in Cairns made plans to move
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Checkout girl part-time
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And rumour said there's a boom ahead
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You can make your future here
Em
By the Gladstone pier
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A two roomed five row shelter
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Empty hopes, the damp, the flies
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Prices hiked her face grew tight
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And conversation died
C G D Em
And the foreman at the smelter said you're much too old
C G Am
Try the cane fields furthers north
C G D Em
And the clerk at the market said we don't buy trouble
C G Am
There's a strike down at the port
C G D Em
Then a six-day shift in a filthy pit
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The drag lines gouging coal
C G D Em
The black dust gnaws at your lungs and pores
C G Am
And anger rots your soul
C G D Em
And the queue round the block waits for you to drop
C G Am
Can you take it for another year
Em
By the Gladstone Pier
C G
Every Sunday he'd walk alone
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Casting pebbles at the passing waves
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Plunge in brine cleanse his pride
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A stronger man remains
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The crunch of shale and distant sails
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Ached within his bones
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And ships upon the tide
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Bound for ports unknown
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Soon he drank for comfort
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She grew bitter in the weeks between
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The nights of beer and hollow cheer
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And love became routine
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They fought, she left him crying
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Angry words in a last café
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In desperation on a lonely night
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She took the bus to Cairns next day
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And Gladstone couples break that way
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Mutual blame and no regrets
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And boomtown blues just fade to grey
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"I've got to leave this dirty old town
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The rattle of broken men
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And break these chains and wash the pain
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And put to sea again
C G D Em
Drained all my passion my anger and my fears
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And sank them in a flagon
Em
Under Gladstone pier"
C G
She saw him through the Greyhound window
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As the dawn glowed on the chrome
C G
Standing by the pier under sullen skies
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Sea winds calling home
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From surfers up to Townsville
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Past the high-rise colonies
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Fast food, cheap hotels