• 2 Posts
  • 31 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: September 12th, 2023
  • flathead@lemm.eetoWorld News@lemmy.ml•Time to 'think the unthinkable' and consider UK conscription, says Britain's former top NATO commander
    53·
    9 months ago

    Eric Bogle - The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

    https://yewtu.be/watch?v=WG48Ftsr3OI

    Now, when I was a young man, I carried my pack
And I lived the free life of a rover
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback
Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over

Then in 1915, my country said, "Son
It's time you stop rambling, 'cause there's work to be done"
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As the ship pulled away from the quay
And amidst all the cheers, the flag-waving and tears
We sailed off for Gallipoli

How well I remember that terrible day
How our blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter

Johnny Turk, he was waiting, he primed himself well
He showered us with bullets and he rained us with shell
And in five minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us right back to Australia

But the band played Waltzing Matilda
When we stopped to bury the slain
We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then we started all over again 

Now those who were left  did their best to survive
In that mad world of death, blood, and fire
And for ten weary weeks, I kept myself alive
While the corpses around me piled higher

Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head
And when I awoke in my hospital bed
And saw what it had done - well, I wished I was dead
Never knew there was worse things than dying

For I'll go no more waltzing Matilda
To the green bush far and free
For to hang tent and pegs, a man needs both legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

So they collected the crippled, the wounded, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The legless, the armless, the blind, the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla

And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve, to mourn and to pity

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
And they turned all their faces away

And so now every April, I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving old dreams of past glory

And the old men march slowly, their bones stiff and sore
The forgotten heroes of a forgotten war
And the young people ask, "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question

But the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men still answer the call
But as year follows year, those old men disappear
Someday no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing matilda
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me
And their ghosts may be heard 
As you pass by that billabong
You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me.