'Neath the gumtrees by the roadway,
As the sun went down outback,
I lay at rest in peaceful reverie,
Then I thought of all the songs I'd sung,
About the outside track
And that is how this vision came to me.
As I doze there in the shadows,
'Neath the gumtrees by the road,
I heard an angel singing there on high,
Just welcomed into heaven,
was a soldier and his dog,
Nevermore would he and Rusty say good-bye.
Then along the road came farmer Gray
With his dancin' Jersey cow,
But you'd never know this famous pair have gone all highbrow now,
But their harvest days are over, sad it is to say,
But they're making much more money,
Since the boogie came their way.
And the swaggie who liked good 'baccy,
was smokin' a big cigar,
'N' braggin' about the fights he had in town,
Then the ghost of old king Bundawaal
with a wild old tribal yell,
hit him on the head with a killer boomerang.
Frankie and Johnny next came by
Fightin' the way they do,
She said, "Johnny man, you've been making eyes
At that little girl dressed in blue."
He said, "I know I've done yer wrong, be'n doing so for years,"
And the road I travel now, is down the lonesome road of tears."
Then along came farmer Wilson, dressed in a faded suit,
A lifebelt hanging round his neck and a flipper on his boot,
He said, "Well things ain't b'en the same
Since the distant days gone by,
When a certain character wrote a song
About the wet month of July."
So I says to farmer Wilson, "Do ya reckon I'm to blame."
His eyes went wild and his whiskers sand his face went red as flame,
"Yes you're the bloke that wrote the song,
That's made my farm a sea,
And they're catchin' fish with spinners,
Now where my cow-yard used to be."
'Neath the gumtrees by the roadway,
As the sun goes down outback,
I lay at rest in peaceful reverie,
Then I thought of all the songs I'd sung
About the outside track,
And that is how this vision came to me.
