Slim Dusty Sweeney (Live) Lyrics

It was somewhere in September and the sun was goin'
down
When I came in search of coffee, to a Darling River
town
Come-And-Have-A-Drink we'll call it, 'tis a fitting
name I think
And 'twas raining, for a wonder, up at Come-And-Have-A-
Drink

Underneath the pub verandah I was resting on a bunk,
When a stranger rose before me, and he said that he was
drunk.
He apologised for speaking, there was no offence he
swore,
But he somehow seemed to fancy that he'd seen my face
before.

He agreed you can't remember all the chaps you chance
to meet,
And he said his name was Sweeney, people lived in
Sussex Street.
He was camping in a stable, that he swore that he was
right,
Only for the blanky horses walkin' over him all night

He'd apparently been fighting, for his face was black
and blue,
And it looked as though the horses had been treading on
him too.
But an honest genial twinkle in the eye that wasn't
hurt,
Seemed to hint of something better, spite of drink and rags and dirt.

[Instrumental]

He was born in Parramatta and he said with humour grim,
That he'd like to see the city, 'ere the liquor
finished him.
But he couldn't raise the money, he was damned if he
could think,
What the Government was doing here, he offered me a
drink.

I declined, 'twas self-denial and I lectured him on
booze,
Using all the hackneyed arguments that preachers mostly
use.
Things I'd heard in temperance lectures, I was young
and rather green,
And I ended by referring to the man he might have been.

But he couldn't stay to argue, for his beer was nearly
gone,
He was glad, he said, to meet me, and he'd see me later
on.
But he guessed he'd have to go and get his bottle
filled again,
And he gave a lurch and vanished in the darkness and
the rain.

Now of afternoons in cities, when the rain is on the
land
Visions come to me of Sweeney, with his bottle in his
hand.