Song information On this page you can find the lyrics of the song Foolscap Tombstones, artist - Slim Dusty. Album song The Man Who Steadies The Lead, in the genre Поп
Date of issue: 31.12.1991
Record label: EMI Recorded Music Australia
Song language: English
Foolscap Tombstones |
With faded ink brandings and covered in dust |
Forgotten up there on the shelf out of view |
All these old station journals and chequebooks and such |
Naming the pound a week people who I knew |
The names of old ringers, fencers, and breakers |
Camp cooks and drovers and a housemaid or two |
Firin' old memories these old station journals |
Shrouding the names of bush people I knew |
Names of hard toilers and boozers and brawlers |
One or two names of good stockmen I knew |
Indelibly etched in these old station ledgers |
Abandoned up here, choked in dust out of view |
Copies of records required by head office |
Monthly reports from a man held in trust |
Fragile old entries on musty old foolscap |
Home for red hornets and red Cooper dust |
Close to my hand lies a volume of history |
Listing some names long forgotten, deceased |
Dead though they might be, today they come back to me reading these pages so |
dust marked and creased |
And who in head office devalues this history with which these old records are |
so richly filled |
How many shareholders honor the memory of the pound a week stockmen a station |
colt killed |
The bush bred young housemaid, where has she wondered |
And where is the scribe who composed these reports |
And where is the dogger, the drover, the blacksmith |
And others who join a parade in my thoughts |
Yes, these old station records all covered in red dust |
Vanished from sight here, neglected alone |
You are fragile yet stronger than any flowery epithets man ever chiseled on |
marble headstone |
So I’ll dust you and mend you and care for you now |
And place you out there at the front in full view |
And every so often I’ll come by and squander some time with these pound a week |
people and you |