Karaoké And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda (1983 version) Eric Bogle

Now when I was a young man

I carried me pack and I lived the free life on the Rover

From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback well I waltzed my Matilda all over

Then in nineteen-fifteen my country said Son it's time you stop ramblin'

There's work to be done

So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun and they marched me away to the war

And the band played Waltzing Matilda as the ship pulled away from the quay

And amidst all the cheers the flag wavin' and tears we sailed off for Gallipoli

And how well I remember that terrible day our blood stained the sand and the water

And of how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay we were butchered like lambs at the slaughter

Johnny Turk he was waitin'

He primed himself well

He showered us with bullets and he rained us with shell

And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell

Nearly blew us right back to Australia

But the band played Waltzing Matilda when we stopped to bury our slain

We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs then we started all over again

And those that were left well we tried to survive in that mad world of blood, death and fire

And for ten weary weeks

I kept myself alive though around me the corpses piled higher

Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head and when I woke up in me hospital bed

And saw what it had done well I wished I was dead

Never knew there was worse things than dyin'

For I'll go no more waltzing Matilda all around the green bush far and free

To hump tent and pegs a man needs both legs

No more waltzing Matilda for me

So they gathered the crippled

The wounded, the maimed

And they shipped us back home to Australia

The legless

The armless

The blind, the insane

Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla

And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay

I looked at the place where me legs used to be

And thank Christ there was nobody waitin' for me

To grieve to mourn and to pity

But the band played Waltzing Matilda as they carried us down the gangway

But nobody cheered

They just stood and stared then they turned all their faces away

And so now every April

I sit on me porch

And I watch the parade pass before me

And I see my old comrades

How proudly they march

Revivin' old dreams of past glory

And the old men march slowly

Old bones stiff and sore

They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war

And the young people ask

What are they marchin' for

And I ask meself the same question

But the band plays Waltzing Matilda and the old men still answer the call

But as year follows year more old men disappear

Someday no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda

Waltzing Matilda

Who'll come a-Waltzing

Matilda with me

And their ghosts may be heard as they march by that billabong

Who'll come a-Waltzing

Matilda with me