Ted - Redgum.mp3

[00:00.00] On a back block down
[00:14.79]Salisbury
[00:15.27]Plains Ted was born in 1895
[00:18.15]Thrust from the loins on to rusty soil
[00:20.52]And the cord was cut with a scythe
[00:23.94]He said "People there are city folk today And they couldn't tell **** from clay A ripening crop of stobie poles There's no regrets when the memory roams That earth is in me bones "
[00:41.76]Did his bit in the first
[00:43.23]World War
[00:43.80]Took the shilling to fight the
[00:45.12]Hun Mud up to his crotch in
[00:47.58]Flanders fields
[00:48.66]And the gas eating out his lungs
[00:52.02]He said "Me best mate died hanging on the barbed wire And when the attack was through We took some prisoners to HQ And shared a fag and a yarn or two They were the same as me and you"
[01:05.79]And I asked old
[01:06.75]Ted what history meant
[01:08.28]As he sharpened his hedging shears " What a bloody fool question that is my boy I lived it for 83 years"
[01:20.22]See him every year on
[01:21.57]Anzac Day
[01:22.47]Swilling beers down at the
[01:23.40]Rex Hotel
[01:24.81]He'd laugh with his mates and go deep in thought
[01:27.24]Where he went even he couldn't tell
[01:30.69]He said "King and Country, cock'n'bull We fought just to survive The anger might have faded still this feeling grabs me deep inside I guess you could call it pride "
[01:48.12]As a navvy on the line in the
[01:49.47]Nullabor The
[01:50.52]Depression left its scars
[01:52.59]Heaving cold steel rails in the burning sun
[01:54.93]And freezing beneath the stars
[01:58.53]He said " If you escaped the susso queues You had a hell of price to pay And when time flowed like an open wound I'd blow me dough on a Saturday And drink the pain away "
[02:31.14]On Sunday arvo he'd sit and talk
[02:33.36]Over a dozen cold
[02:34.44]West End Of what was gained and what was lost
[02:37.95]And would never come again
[02:40.26]He said "Money you know it comes and goes On booze and rent and fags You can make a fortune on overtime And lose it all on the nags But years of toil with a bunch of mates You know it leaves you satisfied Though we never moved a mountain We sure gave it a try"
[03:00.30]Pick the wheat from the chaff
[03:01.50]And the steel from the scurf
[03:02.73]And the honest man from the liar
[03:05.07]If wisdom came by other names
[03:10.05]Ted was earth and fire
[03:24.60]On the day that old
[03:25.98]Ted died No-one would have known
[03:29.19]Buried in a pauper's grave
[03:31.41]He lived and died alone
[03:34.89]And the 727s roared overhead
[03:37.20]Withe the drone of the angry roads
[03:39.60]There seemed a pause for just a while
[03:43.80]And the silence was heard around for miles
[03:51.93]And the silence was heard for miles