[Editor: This song was published in The Old Bush Songs (1905), edited by Banjo Paterson. It was previously published in The Queenslander, 19 December 1891.]
Mustering song
(Air: “So Early in the Morning”)
The boss last night in the hut did say —
“We start to muster at break of day;
So be up first thing, and don’t be slow;
Saddle your horses and off you go.”
Chorus
So early in the morning, so early in the morning,
So early in the morning, before the break of day.
Such a night in the yard there never was seen
(The horses were fat and the grass was green);
Bursting of girths and slipping of packs
As the stockmen saddled the fastest hacks.
Chorus: So early in the morning, &c.
Across the plain we jog along
Over gully, swamp, and billabong;
We drop on a mob pretty lively, too;
We round ’em up and give ’em a slue.
Chorus: So early in the morning, &c.
Now the scrub grows thick and the cattle are wild,
A regular caution to this ’ere child —
A new chum man on an old chum horse,
Who sails through the scrub as a matter of course.
Chorus: So early in the morning, &c.
I was close up stuck in a rotten bog;
I got a buster jumping a log;
I found this scouting rather hot,
So I joined the niggers with the lot we’d got.
Chorus: So early in the morning, &c.
A long-haired shepherd we chanced to meet
With a water-bag, billy, and dog complete;
He came too close to a knocked-up steer,
Who up a sapling made him clear.
Chorus: So early in the morning, &c.
Now on every side we faintly hear
The crack of the stockwhip drawing near;
To the camp the cattle soon converge,
As from the thick scrub they emerge.
Chorus: So early in the morning, &c.
We hastily comfort the inner man
With the warm contents of the billy-can;
The beef and damper are passed about
Before we tackle the cutting out.
Chorus: So early in the morning, &c.
We’re at it now — that bally calf
Would surely make a sick man laugh;
The silly fool can’t take a joke;
I hope some day in the drought he’ll croak.
Chorus: So early in the morning, &c.
We’ve got ’em now — the cows and calves
(Things here are never done by halves);
Strangers, workers, and milkers, too,
Of scrubbers also not a few.
Chorus: So early in the morning, &c.
It’s getting late, we’d better push;
’Tis a good long way across the bush,
And the mob to drive are middling hard;
I do not think we’ll reach the yard.
Chorus: So early in the morning, &c.
Source:
A. B. Paterson (editor), The Old Bush Songs, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1905, pp. 111-113
Previously published in:
The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld.), 19 December 1891, p. 17 of the “Christmas supplement to the Queenslander” [note: the person who submitted the song used the pseudonym of “Captain Cook”]
The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld.), 11 August 1894, p. 260
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