Union Songs

Gentlemen of New South Wales

A Song by Peter Doley©2007 Peter Doley

- [play]

Come all you ratbags of a rebel strain
With next to nothing to your name
Think twice before you play the game
With the Gentlemen of New South Wales

And a mongrel crew they are too
As mongrel a crew as ever you knew
An English Scottish and Irish stew
Those Gentlemen of New South Wales

With a Yo Ho Ho and a Heave Ho Hum
A bag of wheat and a toddy of rum
With a Bully Bully Bully bang of the drum
Those Gentlemen of New South Wales

Some of them sit on the legal bench
And some of them sit in the Cabinet
They march in their own little regiment
Those Gentlemen of New South Wales

They run the country and the town
They run the markets up and down
They squat on the land with the highest ground
Those Gentlemen of New South Wales

With a Yo Ho Ho and a Heave Ho Hum
A bag of wheat and a toddy of rum
With a Bully Bully Bully bang of the drum
Those Gentlemen of New South Wales

They sound the bugle and fly the flag
If there's profit to be got from bad
Their alibis will be iron clad
Those Gentlemen of New South Wales

Come all you ratbags of a rebel strain
Think twice before you complain
They'll send you packing straight to gaol
Those Gentlemen of New South Wales

With a Yo Ho Ho and a Heave Ho Hum
A bag of wheat and a toddy of rum
With a Bully Bully Bully bang of the drum
Gentlemen of New South Wales

Notes

Many thanks to Peter and Martin Doley for permission to add this song to the Union Songs collection.

Peter writes:
"I wrote the lyrics and melody to Gentlemen of NSW and my brother Martin did the arrangement and together we played it, sang it and recorded it. We're operating under the name of The Drongoes.

For background or context, it's probably plain that the last decade under Howard underpins the lyrics. I was looking for a way of talking power and politics without the usual bluntness and shelf life limitations of the genre and also I was interested in trying to situate current aspects in an historical continuum - once again, without the limitations of too rigid a specificity.

So the Rum Rebellion provides the backdrop, there's an inverted call to resistance, ironic reference to the wheat scandal, land, boys club power abuse etc a traditional format and hopefully a strange fluctuation between the past and present gentlemen of NSW that indicates the heritage has been carried through and keeps up its tradition of privilege and damage. The whole thing is more successful than I realised at conception time. It seemed an interesting way to write so now there's a couple more songs in a similar vein that we're working on at the moment."

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