A Drover's Life by Desert Rat

And here is the alternate view of the drover's life to that presented by Banjo Paterson. In this case the parody is written by a real drover, Wally Darling, who wrote under the pen name, Desert Rat.

A Drover's Life
By Wally Darling (Desert Rat)

As I write this little ditty
Perhaps I'm feeling blue
For the swag is wet and sodden
And the fly is blown in two.

The rain is pouring heavy,
The wind is bloody chill.
And I rather feel like howling
With the dingo on the hill.

No doubt this life is thrilling
Out beneath the desert stars.
When your fitting sole companion
Are a mob of mad Gallahs.

Then the old joke comes to memory.
It was written long ago,
That the drover's life has pleasures
That the townsfolk never know.

When your are sitting on a rooter
With a green-eyed monkey holt
A quiet horse they tell you
But sometimes he'll buck and bolt.

So you hit him in the shoulders
With a pair of three inch spurs.
Next thing you know, you're sitting
In a patch of bloody burrs.

When you are tangling with the clean skins
In the dust and in the heat
And the big Mick with a grievance
Makes a beeline for your seat.

You try to make the fence
But the Mick's got too much tow.
Oh, yes, the drover's life has pleasures
That the townsfolk never know.

When you are coming down the Canning
Where the lonely stages are
And the owner comes to meet you
With his brand new motor car.

And the dust he raises mingles
With that churned up by the feet
Of the hides that you are droving
Some of which perhaps he'll eat.

And when you are sitting on the night horse
On a dark and stormy night.
You see the white-horns glistening
In the lightning's ghostly light.

And you shiver there and wonder
If they jump, which way they'll go.
Ah, yes, the drover's life has pleasures
That the townsfolk never know.

Now the tucker's mostly tasty
On the Canning route you know.
When the flies have had a gutful
And the meat hats have had a go

And when you eat the babbler's browny
Well it's best to close your eyes.
For it's hard to tell the difference
Between the currants and the flies.

Or when you're whipping water
Till your bellows nearly burst.
And your water camel joeys
And you bullocks cry from thirst.

When the feed is mostly scanty
And the waterholes are dry.
The squatters sitting on your back
It's enough to make you cry.

So you reckon that you will truck it in
Give something else a go.
Yes, the drover's life has pleasures
That the townsfolk never know.

You battle down a dusty stage
To a well that's broken down.
Or a tank shot full of bullet holes
By yokels from the town.

And they wonder why you hit the grog
And curse their lousy stations.
Why many a man has cut his throat
In sheer desperation.

So let this be a warning,
To you fellows of the town.
Who want to go a droving,
Where the bullocks all come down.

For if you go a droving
You very soon will know
That the drover's life has pleasures
That it's better not to know

Yes, I sometimes rather doubt it
But then I wouldn't know.
They say that the drover's life
Has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.