Click Go the Shears

This is my major contribution to the World-Wide Web. I was idly looking for the words to this Australian song and couldn't find a site that had the words, the tune and the harmony. Click the sheep to hear the tune (a 15.4KB midi file I created using Cakewalk Pro Audio 9). If you right-click, then you can open it in a new tab and follow the words.

I photographed those sheep in a pen on my sister's farm in Hawke's Bay, NZ; here's the spectacular view from their front porch. Other views of the beautiful scenery nearby are at my flickr page. And if you like New Zealand here's a fantastic video compilation created by Charles Le.

Jackie's husband Brian Scannell with his dog Meg won the Short Head and Yard event in the 2007 TUX South Island Sheep Dog Trial Championships, and was one of the four-man team that reclaimed the Wayleggo Cup from Australia in the October 2007 Trans-Tasman dog trials. Brian and Meg remained cool under huge pressure after one of the NZ team had been timed out, the TV commentator exclaiming "you won't see any better than that anywhere in the world"!

Out on the board the old shearer stands
Grasping his shears in his thin bony hands
Fixed is his gaze on a bare-bellied yoe
Glory if he gets her, won't he make the ringer go

Chorus:
Click go the Shears boys, click, click, click
Wide is his blow and his hands move quick
The ringer looks around and is beaten by a blow
And curses the old snagger with the bare-bellied yoe

In the middle of the floor in his cane-bottomed chair
Sits the boss of the board with his eyes everywhere
Notes well each fleece as it comes to the screen
Paying strict attention that its taken off clean

(Chorus)

The colonial experience man, he is there of course
With his shiny leggin's on, just got off his horse
Gazes all around him like a real connoisseur
Scented soap, and brilliantine and smelling like a whore

(Chorus)

The tar-boy is there and waiting on demand
With his blackened tar pot in his tarry hand
Spies one old sheep with a cut upon its back
Hears what he's waiting for - its "Tar here Jack!"

(Chorus)

Now the shearing's over, we've all got our cheque
So roll up your swags and its off down the track
The first pub we come to its there we'll have a spree
And everyone that comes along it's "Have a drink with me!"

(Chorus)

There we leave him standing shouting for all hands
Whilst all around him every shouter stands
His eye is on the keg which now is lowering fast,
He works hard, he drinks hard, and goes to hell at last.