When I was a young man I carried my pack And I lived the free life of a rover from the Murrays green basin to the dusty outback I walzed my Mathilda all over Then in nineteen fifteen my country said Son It's time to stop rambling cos there's work to be done So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun And sent me away to the war And the band played walzing mathilda As we sailed away from the quay And amidst all the tears and the shouts and the cheers We sailed off to Gallipoli How well I remember that terrible day How the blood stained the sand and the water And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter Jonny Turk he was ready, he primed himself well He chased us with bullets, he rained us with shells And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell Nearly blew us right back to Austraila But the band played Walzing Mathilda As we stopped to bury our slain We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs Then we started all over again Now, those who were left, well we tried to survive In that mad world of blood, death and fire And for then weary weaks I kept myself alive But around me the corpses piled higher Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over tit And I woke up in my hospital bed I saw what it had done, Christ, I wish I was dead Never knew there were worse things than dying For I'll go no more waltzing Mathilda All around the green bush far and near For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs No more waltzing Mathilda for me So they collected the cripples, the wounded, the maimed And they shipped us back home, to Australia The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay I looked at the place where my legs used to be And thank Christ there was noone there waiting for me To grieve and to mourn and to pity And the band played Walzing Mathilda As they carried us down the gangway But nobody cheered, they just stood and they stared Then turned all their faces away And now every April I sit on my porch And I watch the parade pass before me And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march Renewing the dreams of past glory The silly old men - all bent stiff and sore The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war And the young people ask, 'what are they marching for?' And I ask myself the same question And the band played Waltzing Mathilda And the old men answer to call But year after year their numbers get fewer Some day no one will march there at all Waltzing Mathilda, Waltzing Mathilda Who'll come a-waltzing Mathilda with me? And their ghosts may be heard as you pass the blue sky Who'll come a-waltzing Mathilda with me?
