Slim Dusty - A Squatters Prayer lyrics

rate me

I must look a bloody wag,

Sitting here upon my swag,

Beneath the tattered remnants of a fly.

With water all around me,

Fair dinkum it'd astounds me,

The quantity that's comin' from the sky.

I'm sitting on an island,

The only bit of high land,

Upon the sea of saturated bog,

And the company that I'm keepin',

ain't exactly made for sleepin',

it's several thousand croating bloated frogs.

I thought I'd seen some skeeters

And other types of bleeders

In my travels through this God forsaken land,

But the way there flapping in the trees,

Has got me tremblin' at the knees,

That bee of good axe handle across the spand

I've had all I can take,

From centipedes and snakes

And scorpians and things that crawl around,

They're sittin' on the bolders,

And perchin' on my shoulders,

All lookin' for a bit of higher ground.

Hey!

With the water risin' steady,

Oh, I'll tell ya mate, I'm ready,

To vacate this place without no more delay,

For I saw my goods and chattels,

My horses and my cattle,

Go driftin' down the river yesterday.

The gathering of forty years,

The fruits of all my sweat and tears,

Swept away before my very eyes,

Carried off by raging floods,

Mire deep in Queensland mud

Three thousand head of cattle doomed to die.

I was never very wealthy,

But the overdraft was healthy,

I thought at last I saw the end in sight.

Well the end has come up fast,

My squatter days are past,

Vanished like the station overnight.

Now this greasy tucker-bag,

And torn and sodden swag,

And a pair of Williams boots all full of mud.

A roll that I possessed,

But in truth I must confess,

I'd be better off then some here in this flood.

And as I sit and ponder,

On the ways of life I wonder,

Why mother nature doesn't use some reason

One year we have a drought,

And the next we're flooded out,

Oh, for God's sake woman, equalize your seasons.

[From his album: "The Man Who is Australia" Disc 3

Transcribed: Marten Busstra 2009]