Samuel’s Musician Of The Week

This week the award goes to David Gordon Kirkpatrick AO, better known as Slim Dusty. There are tow songs that always spring to mind for me when I think of Slim Dusty, When The Rain Tumbles Down In July and A Pub With No Beer. I have chosen the latter as the feature song:

Well it’s lonesome away from your kindred and all
By the camp fire at night, Where the wild dingos call
But there’s nothin’ so lonesome dull or so drear
Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer

Now the publican’s anxious for the quota to come
There’s a far away look on the face of the bum
The maids got all cranky and and the cooks acting queer
What a terrible place, is a pub with no beer

Then the stockman rides up with his dry dusty throat
He presses up to the bar and pulls a wad from his coat
But the smile on his face quickly turns to a snear
As the barman says sadly, “The pubs got no beer”

Now there’s a dog on the veranda for his master he waits
But the boss is inside drinkin’ wine with his mates
He hurries for cover and he cringes with fear
It’s no place for a dog, round a pub with no beer

And old Billie the Blacksmith, the first time in his life
Why he’s gone home cold sober to his darling wife
He walks in the kitchen she says your early Bill dear
But then he breaks down and he tells her “The pub’s got no beer”

So it’s lonesome away from your kindred and all
By the camp fire at night, Where the wild dingos call
But there’s nothin’ so lonesome dull or so drear
Than to stand in the bar of that pub with no beer

Incidentally, when Slim Dusty recorded that song in 1957, it was the first Australian single to ever go gold.

Samuel