Slim Dusty - Sweeny lyrics

rate me

It was somewhere in September and the sun was goin' down

When I came in search of coffee, to a Darling River town

Come-And-Have-A-Drink we'll call it, 'tis a fitting name I think

And 'twas raining, for a wonder, up at Come-And-Have-A-Drink

Underneath the pub verandah I was resting on a bunk,

When a stranger rose before me, and he said that he was drunk.

He apologised for speaking, there was no offence he swore,

But he somehow seemed to fancy that he'd seen my face before.

He agreed you can't remember all the chaps you chance to meet,

And he said his name was Sweeney, people lived in Sussex Street.

He was camping in a stable, that he swore that he was right,

Only for the blanky horses walkin' over him all night

He'd apparently been fighting, for his face was black and blue,

And it looked as though the horses had been treading on him too.

But an honest genial twinkle in the eye that wasn't hurt,

Seemed to hint of something better, spite of drink and rags and dirt.

He was born in Parramatta and he said with humour grim,

That he'd like to see the city, 'ere the liquor finished him.

But he couldn't raise the money, he was damned if he could think,

What the Government was doing here, he offered me a drink.

I declined, 'twas self-denial and I lectured him on booze,

Using all the hackneyed arguments that preachers mostly use.

Things I'd heard in temperance lectures, I was young and rather green,

And I ended by referring to the man he might have been.

But he couldn't stay to argue, for his beer was nearly gone,

He was glad, he said, to meet me, and he'd see me later on.

But he guessed he'd have to go and get his bottle filled again,

And he gave a lurch and vanished in the darkness and the rain.

Now of afternoons in cities, when the rain is on the land

Visions come to me of Sweeney, with his bottle in his hand.

[From his album: "The Very Best of Slim Dusty"

Contributed: Marten Busstra 2009]