Train To Lidcombe

A Song by John Dengate©John Dengate
Tune: Garden where the praties grow.

Chorus:
You can talk of Matthew Flinders, you can talk of Captain Sturt,
You can rave about explorers till your throat begins to hurt.
Yes, I know they crossed the oceans and they travelled tough terrain
But there's none of them could face a trip to Lidcombe on the train.

'Twas a blazing day in January, Nineteen Eighty-two,
They were praying for a Southerly from Lithgow to the 'Loo;
I cooked from Glebe to Central like a lobster or a crab;
Paid the sweating taxi driver and alighted from the cab.

Platform Eighteen? Platform Nineteen? There's an element of doubt
But you've always got the indicator there to help you out.
And a fellow with a microphone dispensing wisdom free,
But his information and the indicators don't agree.

Well the train crawls out of Central to a soft ironic cheer,
I'd sell my mother's wedding ring for half a glass of beer.
I'm hot and in the horrors and my thirst is looming large
And I fear that every pub we pass is only a mirage.

Faces to the westward, we are sizzling on the grill
We have to wait for half an hour at Summer bloody Hill,
We stop and start like Murphy's cart - my temper's turning sour -
And near Flemington we have to wait another half an hour.

I stagger out at Lidcombe contemplating suicide;
My compass it has melted and my camels they have died.
My fevered brain surrounds the train with breweries and stills,
And bleaching on the platform are the bones of Burke and Wills.

Notes

Score to be added