Digital Tradition Mirror

Freedom's on the Wallaby

(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

Freedom's on the Wallaby
(Henry Lawson)

cho: Australia's a big country, and freedom's humping bluey
     And Freedom's on the Wallaby, oh, can't you hear her cooey?
     She's just begun to boomerang, she'll knock the tyrant silly
     She's going to light another fire and boil another billy.

Our fathers toiled for bitter bread while loafers toiled beside them,
For food to eat and clothes to wear, their native land denied them.
And so they left their native land in spite of their devotion
And so they came, or if they stole, were sent across the ocean.

Then freedom couldn't stand the glare of royalty's regalia
She left the loafers where they were and came out to Australia.
But now across the mighty main the chains have come to bind her
She little thought to see again the wrongs she left behind her.

Our fathers grubbed to make a home; hard grubbing 'twas and clearing
They wasn't troubled with the lords when they were pioneering;
But now that we have made this land a garden full of promise
Old greed must crook his dirty hand and come to take her from us.

So we must fly a rebel flag as others did before us
And we must sing a rebel song and join in the rebel chorus.
We'll make the tyrants feel the sting of those that they would throttle,
They needn't say the fault was ours if blood should stain the wattle.

Note: humping bluey = shouldering a blanket and walking the outback
      cooey = call
     wattle = a fence of woven twigs
RG

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!