Ted

[00:11.33] On a back block down Salisbury Plains
[00:15.72] Ted was born in 1895
[00:17.84] Thrust from the loins on to rusty soil
[00:20.50] And the cord was cut with a scythe
[00:22.90] He said "People there are city folk today
[00:26.51] And they couldn't tell shit from clay
[00:29.02] A ripening crop of stobie poles
[00:31.43] There's no regrets when the memory roams
[00:35.19] That earth is in me bones"
[00:41.78] Did his bit in the first World War
[00:43.77] Took the shilling to fight the Hun
[00:46.05] Mud up to his crotch in Flanders fields
[00:48.70] And the gas eating out his lungs
[00:52.33] He said "Me best mate died hanging on the barbed wire
[00:54.74] And when the attack was through
[00:56.66] We took some prisoners to HQ
[00:59.49] And shared a fag and a yarn or two
[01:03.58] They were the same as me and you"
[01:06.70] And I asked old Ted what history meant
[01:08.59] As he sharpened his hedging shears
[01:10.57] "What a bloody fool question that is my boy
[01:12.94] I lived it for 83 years"
[01:20.89] See him every year on Anzac Day
[01:22.59] Swilling beers down at the Rex Hotel
[01:24.93] He'd laugh with his mates and go deep in thought
[01:27.40] Where he went even he couldn't tell
[01:30.86] He said "King and Country, cock'n'bull
[01:33.29] We fought just to survive
[01:35.67] The anger might have faded still this feeling grabs me deep inside
[01:44.69] I guess you could call it pride"
[01:47.64] As a navvy on the line in the Nullabor
[01:50.50] The Depression left its scars
[01:52.71] Heaving cold steel rails in the burning sun
[01:55.19] And freezing beneath the stars
[01:58.31] He said "If you escaped the susso queues
[02:01.22] You had a hell of price to pay
[02:02.90] And when time flowed like an open wound
[02:05.83] I'd blow me dough on a Saturday
[02:09.55] And drink the pain away"
[02:13.00] And I asked old Ted what history meant
[02:14.72] As he sharpened his hedging shears
[02:17.02] "What a bloody fool question that is my boy
[02:19.55] I lived it for 83 years"
[02:32.12] On Sunday arvo he'd sit and talk
[02:33.56] Over a dozen cold West End
[02:35.50] Of what was gained and what was lost
[02:38.09] And would never come again
[02:40.45] He said "Money you know it comes and goes
[02:42.68] On booze and rent and fags
[02:44.99] You can make a fortune on overtime
[02:47.45] And lose it all on the nags
[02:49.74] But years of toil with a bunch of mates
[02:51.94] You know it leaves you satisfied
[02:54.14] Though we never moved a mountain
[02:56.84] We sure gave it a try"
[02:59.58] Pick the wheat from the chaff
[03:01.74] And the steel from the scurf
[03:02.81] And the honest man from the liar
[03:05.17] If wisdom came by other names
[03:09.32] Ted was earth and fire
[03:21.82] On the day that old Ted died
[03:26.54] No-one would have known
[03:28.76] Buried in a pauper's grave
[03:31.27] He lived and died alone
[03:34.99] And the 727s roared overhead
[03:37.28] With the drone of the angry roads
[03:39.62] There seemed a pause for just a while
[03:42.62] And the silence was heard around for miles
[03:50.78] And the silence was heard for miles
[04:06.48]