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And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
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Joan Baez
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And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
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Now when I was a young lad I carried me pack
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And I lived the free life of the rover.
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From the Murray's green banks, to the dusty outback
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While I waltzed my Matilda all over.
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Then in 1915, my country said, 'Son,
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It's time you stop ramblin', there's work to be done.'
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So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun,
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And they marched me away to the war.
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And the band played 'Waltzing Matilda,'
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As the ship pulled away from the quay,
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Amidst the songs and the cheers, the flag waving, and tears,
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We sailed off for Gallipoli.
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And how well I remember that terrible day,
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How our blood stained the sand we call Suvla Bay
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We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
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The big Turkish shell caught me arse over head,
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And when I woke up in my hospital bed
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And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead
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Never knew there was worse things than dying.
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So I'll go no more 'Waltzing Matilda,'
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Or through the green bush bars and wide
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For to hunt and tent peg a man needs both legs,
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No more 'Waltzing Matilda' for me.
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They gathered the injured, the wounded, the maimed,
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And they shipped us all back to Australia.
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The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane,
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Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla.
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And as our ship sailed into Circular Quay,
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I looked at the place where me legs used to be,
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And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me,
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To mourn, and to grieve, and to pity.
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And the band played "Waltzing Matilda"
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As they wheeled us down the gangway.
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And nobody cheered, they just stood and stared.
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And they all turned their faces away.
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And the band still plays 'Waltzing Matilda,'
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And the young men still answer the call,
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But as year follows year,those old men disappear
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Someday, no one will march there at all.
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Waltzing Mathilda, Waltzing Mathilda
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Who'll come a-waltzing Mathilda with me
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And their ghosts may be heard as you pass the Billabong
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Who'll come a-waltzing Mathilda with me ?
Liam Clancy - Band Played Waltzing Matil...
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