Union Songs

Here's To You Franklin

A Song by Dave de Hugard©Dave de Hugard 1983

- [play]

Well come all you people far and near
And to this story lend an ear
It's to ask you all to make a stand
On a crucial issue now at hand
At the Franklin River a fight's being fought
And bulldozers roar and time it's short
So this is a call for your support
To keep the Franklin Flowing

Chorus
Here's to you Franklin as you roll along
And your forests and your mountains is a wild river song
And may you still be there when we're long gone
So Franklin you keep on flowing

Now this HEC well they're blind of course
And they're wearing blinkers like an old draft horse
Oh but puffed with power too blind to see
The extent of their stupidity
And if you've got your doubts the fact remains
It's up to us to make the change
So it's backs to the wheel for the long term gains
And we'll keep the Franklin Flowing

We must stay the hand of this scheming pack
They'd carve up this country at the drop of a hat
Oh Lake Pedder disappeared at the stroke of a pen
And if they have their way they'll do it again
They'll take the Franklin River too
Except for people like me and you
So I reckon we can see this through
And keep the Franklin Flowing

And I like the cackle of the kookaburra's song
And the bubble of the of the water as she rolls along
And the Huon pines have been standing there
Two thousand years and never a care
Then there's the caves where the earliest men
Sheltered while this river ran
Oh there'e no place here for a hydro dam
So keep the Franklin Flowing

Final Chorus
Here's to you Franklin as you roll along
And your forests and your mountains is a wild river song
And may you still be there when we're long gone
So Franklin you keep on flowing
So Franklin just keep on flowing

Notes

Many thanks to Dave de Hugard for permission to add this song to the Union Songs collection.

'Here's to you Franklin' was written in 1983, part of the national protest against the Hydro Electricity Commission's (HEC) plan to build a dam on the Franklin River in Tasmania's wild south-west.

Visit Dave's website at http://www.dehugard.com/

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union songs..........a selection by mark gregory