Digital Tradition Mirror

A Thousand Mile Away

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

A Thousand Mile Away

Hurrah for the old stock saddle, hurrah for the stockwhip too
Hurrah for the baldy pony boys to carry me westward ho
To carry me westward ho my boys that's where the cattle stray
On the far Barcoo where they eat Nardoo a thousand mile away

Then give your horses rein across the open plain
We'll crack our whips like a thunderbolt nor care what some folks say
And a running we'll bring home them cattle at Narome
On the far Barcoo where they eat Nardoo a thousand mile away

Knee deep in grass we've got to pass the truth I'm bound to tell
Where in three weeks them cattle get as fat as they can swell
As fat as they can swell my lads a thousand pound they weigh
On the far Barcoo and the Flinders too a thousand mile away

So fit me up with a snaffle and a four or a five inch spur
And fourteen foot of greenhide whip to chop the flaming fur
I'll yard them flaming cattle in away that's safe to swear
I'll make them Queensland cattlemen sit back in the saddle and stare

Hurrah for the old stock saddle, hurrah for the stockwhip too
Hurrah for the baldy pony boys to carry me westward ho
To carry me westward ho my boys that's where the cattle stray
On the far Barcoo where they eat Nardoo a thousand mile away


Note: First published in the Queenslander  in 1894
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
Stewart and Keesing note in their Old Bush Songs :
"According to our correspondent R.C.Lethbridge this song was written
by Charles Flower, who once owned a station, 'Roma Downs', in the
Maranoa district".
     The brothers Horace and Charles Flower were keen songwriters in
the 1880's - 90's. Charles Flower's manuscripts are in the Oxley
Library, Brisbane.
     Ron Edwards suggests in The Big Book of Australian Folk Song
that Paterson probably got his version from the Hurd collection
(1894 - 1900). More recently Phillip Butterss discovered that the
Hurd collection consists of cuttings taken from the Queenslander
and that many of the songs in Paterson's Old bush Songs appear to
come from that source.
     The version here is taken from the singing of A.L.Lloyd.
MG

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!