New South Wales (Masterless Men) with lyrics and video

#03020

New South Wales (Masterless Men) with lyrics and video

#1602: YouTube video by TheNewfoundlandMusic ©2011
~ Used with permission ~

Well, here we are in New South Wales,
Shearing sheep as big as whales,
With leather necks and tacky tails,
And hides as tough as rusty nails.

When shearing's come lay down your drum,
Step to the board you brand-new chum;
You're wrapped in rags and rub-a-dub-dub,
We'll send you back on the lime-juice tub.

Well, here we are in New South Wales,
Shearing sheep as big as whales,
With leather necks and taffy tails,
And hides as tough as rusty nails.

Those brand new chums are cocky ones,
Fancy they're the greatest ones;
Fancy they can shear the wool,
The beggars can only tear and pull.

Well, here we are in New South Wales,
Shearing sheep as big as whales,
With leather necks and taffy tails,
And hides as tough as rusty nails.

Though we live beyond our means,
Our daughters wear no crinolines;
Nor are they covered by boot nor shoe,
But live wild in the bush with the kangaroo.

Well, here we are in New South Wales,
Shearing sheep as big as whales,
With leather necks and taffy tails,
And hides as tough as rusty nails.

Home, it's home I'd like to be,
Far from the bush and the back country;
Sixteen thousand miles I've come,
To spend me life as a shearing bum.

Well, here we are in New South Wales,
Shearing sheep as big as whales,
With leather necks and taffy tails,
And hides as tough as rusty nails.

Yes, here we are in New South Wales,
Shearing sheep as big as whales,
With leather necks and taffy tails,
And hides as tough as rusty nails.

####.... Author unknown. Variant of a traditional Australian song ....####

Collected around 1930 and recorded as The Lime-Juice Tub by London-born Albert Lancaster (Bert) Lloyd [1908-1982] (Australian Bush Songs, trk#1, 1956, Riverside USA LP). Re-released in 1994 on the Australian CD The Old Bush Songs on which A.L. Lloyd noted:

A lively shearer named Turnbull sang this over and over as he worked in a shed near Bethungra, New South Wales, around 1930. The tune is as I remember it from him. Likewise some of the words. The text has been filled out a bit from a version published as The Waler's Rhyme in the Sydney Bulletin in 1898. The song is also known as Rub-A-Dub-A-Dub or The Tar-Boys' Tub.

The lyrics and the YouTube video above are from a shorter variant arranged and recorded by the Masterless Men (Breakin' New Ground, trk#4, 1995, published by Gary O'Driscoll/Masterless Men, Mount Pearl, NL, produced and engineered by Gary O'Driscoll, and recorded at First City Productions).

See more songs by The Masterless Men.

A variant was recorded by Sons Of Erin (The Town I Love So Well, trk#8, 1978, Erinson Records, St. John's, NL, recorded at Audio Atlantic Recording Studios, Halifax, Nova Scotia).

See more songs by Sons Of Erin.

From 21st - Century's Fashion Illustrated Glossary:
Crinoline - French word (from Italian crinolino and Latin crino or horsehair). Coarse stiff fabric of cotton or horsehair used especially to line and stiffen hats and garments; hoop skirt; petticoat made of this fabric to enable the bell-like skirts of the early XIX century.

Note: Lime-Juice Tub - a British immigrant ship named after the citrus juice ordered by the British Merchant Shipping Act to be issued to British ship crews as an anti-scorbutic to prevent or cure scurvy.

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