Tom: C
Introdução:
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Well, she buried him down on the edge of the town,
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Where the brigalow suckers, on the cemetery creep.
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She stood with them children in a heavy brown gown,
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What you want you just can't always keep.
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"Well I'm sorry", I said, "I knew him so well",
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Though your body is young, well you never can tell.
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When the hand of fate brings it's fateful death knell",
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She just turned with the slightest of smiles.
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She said "From the start well we knewed it so hard,
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We were always handed the severest of cards.
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A honeymoon spent droving Jamieson's stock,
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Through the wildest winter you've seen.
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And my Romantic notions of horses and land,
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They were soon dis-pelled as a fantasised dream.
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Watching cattle at night in the mid-winter cold,
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Turns a person, both wiry and old.
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Well the flame of the breakfast fire'd be dead,
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As the sun rose up, well you move up ahead.
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I'd be breaking the camp up and rolling the beds,
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As you fanned the stock wider for feed.
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When the weather turned sour with the onset of rain,
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An' the truck'd bogged down to the axle main.
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We'd move up ahead then with pack saddles and chains,
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And I'd wait in the mud by the road.
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With the blankets and the canvas all hung out to dry,
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There's nothing for heating 'cause you couldn't light a fire.
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And no stock permit for the forthcoming shire.
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(No lyric line)
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For the cattle don't camp where they're sloshing in rain,
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They keep walking forward all night like a dog on a chain.
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And he'd be red eyed and weary with a pack horse turned lame,
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And I'd wait miles behind in the mud.
Instrumental Solo 1: (Violin over)
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It was down through Charleville up to Julia Creek,
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Living on syrup and damper and salted corn meat.
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We had nothing but the 'roos and the mailman to meet,
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We'd move up and down with the rains.
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But them inland skies have the starriest of nights,
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With the dance of the fire throwing flickering lights.
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The beauty of it's sunsets were a constant delight,
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I felt that nature had let me intrude.
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The enormous vastness of them inland plains,
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Brings you a lonely contentment to which you can't put a name.
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It's a satisfied glow city folks seldom attain,
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They spend their life on a right rigid rail.
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The kids got their schooling from the government mail,
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We posted their work off at each cattle sale.
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They considered their learning, a self imposed jail,
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They'd rather help their father and fail.
Instrumental Solo 2: (Violin over)
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Early last month at the end of the dry,
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He was given a horse no-body could ride.
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Alert were his ears with a fire in his stride,
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He was young and his spirit was wild.
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To catch him each morning was an hour long battle,
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We had to collar rope his near side to throw on the saddle.
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Or he'd bite and he'd strike, he made my nerves rattle,
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Pande-monium reigned with each ride.
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It was a hot summers' mornin' at the government bore,
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There was a stillness around like I've never felt before.
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How could he know it was fate at his door,
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That was stealthily watchin' his moves.
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He mounted up quick taking slack from the reins,
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Grabbed a full hand of hair from the horse's long mane.
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He'd just hit the saddle when the horse went insane,
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Churning dust in a frenzy of fear.
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The girth on the saddle let go at the ring,
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The surcingle slipped it was impossible to cling.
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The horse felt it go made a desperate fling,
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He was thrown to the length of the reins.
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And I heard his spine snap like a 'roo shooters' shot,
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He'd busted his back on the concreted trough.
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Sickness and fear were the feelings I got,