Slim Dusty Bullock Dung Narration
[Spoken]
There is no exaggeration in this Bullock Dung Narration
There are still ole timers left that know the score
Though this present generation
Of our engine driven nation
May not believe the way we lived, the way we lived
before.
So I’ll try to explain it to you.
[Sung]
Oh the saddle and the bridle and the spurs are hanging
idle
All the horses turned out loose along time ago
Oh there isn’t droving now the road trains have the
loading
And there ain’t no horsemen needed at the long
Overload.
Steer bines are getting rusty and the saddle cloths are
musty
Saddles hanging cracked and brittle in the shed
Yes the droving mobs are lacking, no more sounds of
stock whips cracking
And the road trains now a roarin’ up where once the big
mobs lead.
The stock routes lonely stages written down in
history’s pages
Relegated to an era of old things past
The stockmen an’ the drovers are historical left over’s
Yeah the trucker men has taken over
He’s taken over the past.
Yes the Birdsville track been graded, though it’ still
not very shaded
And the Cooper Creek’s still full of drifting sand
Or away north on the Barkley where the ringers once
rode smartly
With the cattle far away out on the grassy tablelands.
Camp fire wood is rather scanty they’re beyond the rank
and shanty
And the drovers made their fires with bullock dung
Drover’s cooks where rather hampered when they tried to
cook the damper
And their thoughts or words are better left, better
left unsung.
Now the cattle from the byways are all rushed along the
highways
By the cafes for the drivers tasty snack
His thoughts are not of campfires but are more a line
of truck tyres
As he rolls across the Marungi, the Marungi and back.
Where the rider’s spurs once jangled through the lands
swept scrubs and tangled
Out beyond Newcastle’s waters to the west
Now the diesel fumes are heavy from the big trucks
nightly revving
Though I think the set of camp fires some how suits me
best.
The old drover is now zero and the trucker is the hero,
Of this younger generation now it seems,
But my thoughts are with the bridle and the stock whips
hanging idle,
I can only go a drovin’ now, a drovin’ in my dreams.
For the spurs no longer jangle, saddle straps are in a
tangle,
And the green eye ropes are dry and hard as wood,
Yeah, the saddles and the bridles and the stock whips
hanging idle
Tell the story oh, much better, so much better than I
could.