SHEARING IN THE BAR

(Duke Tritton)



My shearing days are over, though I never was a gun

I could always count my twenty at the end of every run

I used the old Trade Union shears, and the blades were always

full

As I drove 'em to the knockers, and I clipped away the wool

I shore at Goorianawa and didn't get the sack

From Breeza out to Compadore, I always could go back

And though I am a truthful man, I find when in a bar

My tallies seem to double, but I never call for tar



Shearing on the western plains where the fleece is full of sand

And the clover burr and corkscrew grass, is the place to try your

hand

For the sheep are tall and wiry where they feed on the Mitchell

grass

And every second one of them is close to the cobbler class

And a pen chock full of cobblers is a shearers dream of hell

So loud and lurid are their words when they catch one on the bell

But when we're pouring down the grog, you'll have no call for tar

For a shearer never cuts 'em, when shearing in a bar



At Louth I caught the bell sheep, a wrinkled, tough wooled brute

Who never stopped his kicking till I tossed him down the chute

My wrist was aching badly, but I fought him all the way

Couldn't afford to miss a blow, I must earn my pound a day

So when I'd take a strip of skin, I'd hide it with my knee

Turn the sheep around a bit where the right bower couldn't see

Then try and catch the rousie's eye and softly whisper "tar"

But it never seems to happen when I'm shearing in the bar



I shore away the belly wool and trimmed the crutch and hocks

Opened up along the neck while the rousie swept the locks

Then smartly swung the sheep around and dumped him on his rear

Two blows to clip away the wig - I also took an ear

Then down around the shoulder and the blades were open wide

As I drove 'em on the long blow and down the whipping side

And when the fleece fell on the board, he was nearly black with

tar

But this is never mentioned when I'm shearing in a bar



Now when the seasons ended and my grandsons all come back

In their buggies and their sulkies -I was always on the track

They come and take me into town to fill me up with beer

And I sit on a corner stool and listen to them shear

There's not a bit of difference - it must make the angels weep

To hear a mob of shearers in a barroom shearing sheep

For the sheep go rattling down the race with never a call for tar

For a shearer never cuts 'em when he's shearing in a bar



Then memories come a crowding and they wipe away the years

And my hand begins to tighten and I seem to feel the shears

I want to tell them of the sheds, the sheds where I have shorn

Full fifty years and sometimes more, before these boys were born

I want to speak of yarragin, Dunlop or Wingadee

But the beer has started working and I'm wobbling at the knees

So I'd better not start shearing, I'd be bound to call for tar

Then be treated as a blackleg when I'm shearing in a bar



@Australia @work @sheep @brag

sung by Martyn Windom-Read

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