> A.L. Lloyd > Songs > A Thousand Miles Away

A Thousand Miles Away

[ Roud 8393 ; AFS 1 ; Ballad Index PFS213 ; trad.]

A.L. Lloyd recorded this “lively account of the cattle runs of outback Queensland” in 1957 for the Wattle album The Banks of the Condamine and Other Bush Songs. Like all tracks of this album it was reissued in 1960 on the Topic LP Outback Ballads.

The Halliard’s shanty A Thousand Miles Away is a quite different song about a sailor parting from his love.

Lyrics

A.L. Lloyd sings A Thousand Miles Away

Hurrah for the old stock saddle, hurrah for the stockwhip too,
Hurrah for the baldy pony, boys, to carry me westward ho.
To carry me westward ho, my boys, that’s where the cattle stray
On the far Barcoo where they eat Nardoo a thousand mile away.

Then give your horses rein across the open plain.
We’ll crack our whips like a thunderbolt nor care what some folks say.
And a running we’ll bring home them cattle at Narome
On the far Barcoo and the Flinders too a thousand mile away.

Knee deep in grass we’ve got to pass, the truth I’m bound to tell,
Where in three weeks the cattle get as fat as they can swell.
As fat as they can swell, my boys, a thousand pound they weigh
On the far Barcoo and the Flinders too a thousand mile away.

So put me up with a snaffle and a four or a five inch spur,
And fourteen foot of greenhide whip to chop the flaming fur.
I’ll yard them snuffy cattle in away, that’s safe to swear.
I’ll make them Queensland cattlemen sit back in the saddle and stare.

(Repeat first verse)

Acknowledgements

Lyrics copied from Mark Gregory’s Australian Folk Songs and adapted to A.L. Lloyd’s singing.