Cockies of Bungaree

Come all you weary travellers that's out of work just mind
You take a trip to Bungaree and plenty there you'll find
Have a trial with the cockies you can take it straight from me
I'm very sure you'll rue the day you first saw Bungaree

Well how I come this weary way I mean to let you know
Being out of employment I didn't know where to go
So I went to the registry office and there I did agree
To take a job of clearing for a cocky in Bungaree

His homestead was of surface mud the roof of mouldy thatch
The doors and windows hung by a nail with never a bolt or catch
The chickens laid eggs on the table such a sight you never did see
One laid an egg on the old tin plate of the cocky of Bungaree

Well it's early the very next morning it was the usual go
He rattled a plate for breakfast before the sun did show
The stars were shining glorious and the moon was high you see
I thought before the sun would rise I'd die in Bungaree

By the time I come into supper it was just on half past nine
And when I had it eat I reckon it was my bedtime
But the cocky he come over to me and he says with a merry laugh
I want you now for an hour or two to cut a bail of chaff

Well when the work was over I had to nurse the youngest child
Whenever I cracked a bit of a joke the missus she would smile
The old feller he got jealous looked like he'd murder me
And there he sat and whipped the cat the cocky in Bungaree

Well when I'd done my first week's work I reckoned I'd had enough
I went up to that cocky and asked him for me stuff
I came down into Ballarat and it didn't take me long
I went straight into Sayer's Hotel and blued my one pound one

So now my job is over and I'm at liberty
I'll never forget the day I met that cocky in Bungaree

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From the singing of A.L.Lloyd.
Simon McDonald of Creswick sings another version.
See 'Cockies of Bungaree 2'
Frank Hardy told me he heard the Lloyd version of the song in the Ballarat
area during the last depression.
Bungaree is sixteen kilometres east of Ballarat in Victoria.
A related and earlier song 'Stringy Bark Cockatoo' was printed in
Paterson's Old Bush Songs
MG
apr97