The Drover's Ballad

From the sunburnt plains of far off North Australia
Came a fella born to ride the wide brown land
Oh he grew up running wild
But soon by all was styled
As the country’s greatest-ever droving man
Oh his legend rode the winds from Broome to Darwin
They loved and loathed him right from end to end
For when the drover gave his heart
To a girl whose skin was dark
From that day on he was no white man’s friend
chorus
So goes The Drover’s story, you’ll hear it near and far
And in the end it’s all he’ll ever own
It says the outcast is a free man
If he sleeps under the stars
Makes the blanket of the southern skies his home
Then they called him up to fight for Mother England
In a far off war that spilled his brother’s blood
Inside the jaws of Hell
Where both his brothers fell
He just watched his faith in man die in the mud
There was no hero’s welcome for The Drover
Just a country that had turned its back on him
When he came home from the war
His sick wife, they would not cure
They let her die, for the colour of her skin
The Drover is a man of constant shadows
Haunted by his pain, his past and name
For every mile he rides
What he cannot hide,
Is the longing in his heart to love again