Used to be a Drover
Used to be a Drover
Words and music (c) Ian Hills 1981 Just a little bit north of Sydney in a little town called Wallumbi I stopped to pick up a hitchhiker - feeling a little bit lonely. His old clothes didn't fit him and he smelt of OP rum. From his worn out shoes to his bottle of booze He looked just like a bum. And he'd hardly settled himself in his seat, with a wistful smile on his face, He said "What part of Queensland are you from. I really miss the old place. I came here for an operation quite a while ago. And they put me on the derro pension to drift me life away. Chorus "But I used to come from Winton And I used to be a drover And I used to work the stock routes Bringing the cattle over". "I remember once we brought in a mob - me and my mate Jim And then we had to go straight up the gulf to bring another mob in. On the way we got pretty well pissed. It was only later I knew I won the steer ride in a rodeo in a town I thought I'd never been through. But now I'm stuck in Sydney - I've never been so ill. I can't get the money to get back home, I suppose I never will". Chorus This old man was a drover. Stockman was his trade. He used to bring the cattle down from the Gulf to Adelaide. Then he went to Sydney to have an operation. Tied him down to a life in town. Tied him to a pension. He said "Now I'm stuck in Sydney - I've never been so ill. I can't get the money to get back home, I suppose I never will". Chorus |
Background to the songI was on my Australian tour - a year off from psychology to see if I could make a living as a musician (I couldn't). I was on my way to Sydney to visit Warren Fahey at Larrikin Records to see if he wanted to publish my latest album (he did). The back of my station wagon was filled with musical paraphernalia: guitars, tin whistles, a didgeridoo, a hammered dulcimer, guitar stands, chord books, tapes and LP's.
Passing through Wallumbi I picked up a hitchhiker and as he got in the car he took one look in the back and had me down pat straight away. He asked me about Queensland and my musical career as a conversation opener. To my amazement he had heard of the winner of the recent country music writers competition (which I had entered and attended) held in Winton that year. The winning song was about a modern drover. It had an evocative chorus: From the banks of the Georgina, down the Diamantina To where the grass is greener down by New South Wales Johnny Stewart's droving, with mobs of cattle roving His life slowly moving down miles of dusty trails. Within minutes he had established his credentials as a bona fide cattle drover. He claimed to know Johnny Stewart and described his own superior exploits as a drover. He claimed he had driven cattle not just from central Australia to Adelaide, but all the way from the Gulf of Carpentaria on Queensland's north coast to Adelaide - about twice as far as Johnny Stewart's drive. Of course he was from Winton, just like Johnny Stewart. He dropped a heavy hint that "someone" should write a song about him and then provided me with all the material I would need. So this is the song I wrote. It has about ten other verses about his larrikin droving career, but when I came to decompose the song to reduce it to a reasonable length for recording, these are the verses that struck me as the essence of the story. I apologise - I don't think it is the song he was expecting. |