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Slim Dusty lyrics : "Outback"

The old year went, and the new returned, in the withering weeks of drought,
The cheque was spent that the shearer earned, and the sheds were all cut out;
The publican's words were short and few, and the publican's looks were black

And the time had come, as the shearer knew, to carry his swag outback

For time means tucker, and tramp you must, where the scrubs and plains are wide,

With seldom a track that a man can trust, or a mountain peak to guide;
All day long in the dust and heat when summer is on the track
With stinted stomachs and blistered feet, they carry their swags outback.


He tramped away from the shanty there, where the days were long and hot,
With never a soul to know or care if he died on the track or not.

Now the poor of the city have friends in woe, no matter how much they lack,
But only God and the swagmen know how a poor man fares outback.


He blamed himself in the year "Too Late" in the heaviest hours of life
'Twas little he dreamed that a shearing-mate had care of his home and wife;
There are times when wrongs from your kindred come, and treacherous tongues attack

When a man is better away from home, and dead to the world outback.

It chanced one day, when the north wind blew in his face like a furnace-breath,

Oh he left the track for a tank he knew ? 'twas a short-cut to his death;
For the bed of the tank was hard and dry, and crossed with many a crack,
And oh! it's a terrible thing to die of thirst in the scrub outback.


A drover came, but the fringe of law was eastward many a mile;
He never reported the thing he saw, for it was not worth his while.

Now the tanks are full and the grass is high in the mulga off the track,
Where the bleaching bones of a white man lie by his mouldering swag Out Back.


For time means tucker, and tramp you must, where the scrubs and plains are wide,
With seldom a track that a man can trust, or a mountain peak to guide;
All day long in the dust and heat when summer is on the track

With stinted stomachs and blistered feet, they carry their swags outback
With stinted stomachs and blistered feet, they carry their swags outback

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