Ted Lyrics - Redgum Anthology 1976-1986 - Redgum

On a back block down Salisbury Plains 

Ted was born in 1895 

Thrust from the loins on to rusty soil 

And the cord was cut with a scythe 

He said "People there are city folk today 

And they couldn't tell shit from clay 

A ripening crop of stobie poles 

There's no regrets when the memory roams 

That earth is in me bones" 

Did his bit in the first World War 

Took the shilling to fight the Hun 

Mud up to his crotch in Flanders fields 

And the gas eating out his lungs 

He said "Me best mate died hanging on the barbed wire 

And when the attack was through 

We took some prisoners to HQ 

And shared a fag and a yarn or two 

They were the same as me and you" 

And I asked old Ted what history meant 

As he sharpened his hedging shears 

"What a bloody fool question that is my boy 

I lived it for 83 years" 

See him every year on Anzac Day 

Swilling beers down at the Rex Hotel 

He'd laugh with his mates and go deep in thought 

Where he went even he couldn't tell 

He said "King and Country, cock'n'bull 

We fought just to survive 

The anger might have faded still this feeling grabs me deep inside 

I guess you could call it pride" 

As a navvy on the line in the Nullabor 

The Depression left its scars 

Heaving cold steel rails in the burning sun 

And freezing beneath the stars 

He said "If you escaped the susso queues 

You had a hell of price to pay 

And when time flowed like an open wound 

I'd blow me dough on a Saturday 

And drink the pain away" 

On Sunday arvo he'd sit and talk 

Over a dozen cold West End 

Of what was gained and what was lost 

And would never come again 

He said "Money you know it comes and goes 

On booze and rent and fags 

You can make a fortune on overtime 

And lose it all on the nags 

But years of toil with a bunch of mates 

You know it leaves you satisfied 

Though we never moved a mountain 

We sure gave it a try" 

Pick the wheat from the chaff 

And the steel from the scurf 

And the honest man from the liar 

If wisdom came by other names 

Ted was earth and fire 

On the day that old Ted died 

No-one would have known 

Buried in a pauper's grave 

He lived and died alone 

And the 727s roared overhead 

Withe the drone of the angry roads 

There seemed a pause for just a while 

And the silence was heard around for miles 

And the silence was heard for miles