[Editor: This is an anonymously-authored bawdy poem, apparently from the early 1900s (or possibly the 1890s).]
[Warning: This poem contains swearing and adult topics, and may therefore be considered NSFW (not safe for work).]
The Bastard from the Bush
As the night was falling slowly over city, town and bush,
From a house in Jones’s Alley came the Captain of the Push,
And his whistle loud and piercing woke the echoes of the Rocks,
And a dozen ghouls came slouching round the corners of the docks,
Then the Captain jerked a finger at a stranger on the kerb,
Whom he qualified politely with an adjective and verb.
Then he made the introduction, “Here’s a covey from the bush,
Fuck me blind, he wants to join us, be a member of the Push!”
Then the stranger made this answer to the Captain of the Push,
“Fuck me dead, I’m Foreskin Fred, the Bastard from the Bush!
I’ve been to every two-up school from Darwin to the ’Loo,
I’ve ridden colts and black gins, what more can a Bastard do?”
“Are you game to smash a window?” asked the Captain of the Push;
“I’d knock a fucking house down,” said the Bastard from the Bush.
“Would you take a maiden’s baby? asked the Captain of the Push;
“I’d take a baby’s maiden,” said the Bastard from the Bush.
“Would you bash a bloody copper, if you caught the c**t alone,
Would you stoush a swell or Chinky, split his garret with a stone,
Would you make your wife a harlot, and swear off work for good?”
Again that bastard’s voice rang out, “My fucking oath, I would!”
“Do you help the girls pick gum leaves?” asked the Captain of the Push;
“No, I hit ’em with the branches!” said the Bastard from the Bush.
“Would you knock me down and rob me?” asked the Captain of the Push;
“I’d knock you down and fuck you!” said the Bastard from the Bush.
“Would you like a cigarette?” asked the Captain of the Push;
“I’ll take the bloody packet,” said the Bastard from the Bush.
Then the Pushites all took counsel, saying “Fuck me, but he’s game.
Let’s make him our star basher, and he’ll live up to his name.”
So they took him to their hide-out, that Bastard from the Bush,
And they gave him all the privileges belonging to the Push;
But soon they found his little ways were more than they could stand,
And finally the Captain thus addressed his little band:
“Now listen here you buggers, we’ve caught a fucking tartar;
At every kind of bludgin’ that bastard’s got the starter,
At poker and at two-up he shook our fucking rules,
He swipes our fucking liquor and he robs our fucking girls.”
So down in Hogan’s Alley, all the members of the Push
Laid a dark and dirty ambush for the Bastard from the Bush,
And against the wall of Riley’s pub, the Bastard made a stand,
A nasty grin upon his dial, a bike chain in his hand.
They sprang upon him in a bunch, but one by one they fell,
With crack of bone, unearthly groan and agonizing yell,
Till the sorely battered Captain, spitting teeth and coughing blood,
Held an ear all torn and bleeding in a hand bedaubed with mud.
“You low polluted bastard,” snarled the Captain of the Push,
“Get back to where you come from, that’s somewhere in the bush,
And I hope that vile misfortune may tumble down on you,
May some lousy harlot dose you, till your bollocks turn sky blue.
May the pangs of windy spasms through your aching bowels dart,
May you shit your bloody trousers, every time you try to fart,
May you take a swig of gin’s piss, mistaking it for beer,
May the Push you next impose on, toss you out on your bloody ear.
May the itching piles torment you, may corns grow on your feet,
May crabs as big as spiders attack your balls a treat.
Then, when you’re down and out, and a hopeless bloody wreck,
May you slip back through your arsehole, and break your bloody neck.”
Editor’s notes:
As this bawdy poem is one that has been passed on verbally, no “original” source is listed.
Some people have attributed the authorship of this bawdy poem to Henry Lawson; however, it seems doubtful that he would be the author, given his reported aversion to swearing. The attribution to Lawson is likely to have arisen from the fact that the poem was obviously based upon his poem “The Captain of the Push” (first published in 1892). However, nonetheless, it is still possible that Lawson was the author, as some people who are against swearing may have rare occasions when they indulge in some bawdiness, for a bit of fun, when they are in a light-hearted or bawdy mood.
Richard Walsh, in his 2009 collection of Australian poetry, laid out some arguments for and against Henry Lawson being the author of “The Bastard from the Bush”:
“The best evidence against the vulgar version being Lawson’s is that ‘The Shearer’s Dream’ is as close as we know he came to composing a rude poem and it is hardly offensive. He seems to have been somewhat puritanical; for example, he never swore unless extremely drunk and agitated. However, H.A. Lindsay asserts that Lawson ‘wrote the obscene version himself and circulated copies among his friends’. Later, wanting some money in a hurry, he toned it down considerably and it was published under the title of ‘The Captain of the Push’.”
See: Richard Walsh (editor), Traditional Australian Verse: The Essential Collection, Crows Nest (Sydney, NSW): Allen & Unwin, 2009, p. 277
Some versions of this poem use “Hogan’s Alley” in the first stanza, but most versions use “Jones’s Alley” (as per the poem “The Captain of the Push”, by Henry Lawson).
balls = (slang) testicles
bedaub = to coat, cover, smear, smudge, or soil a surface, in a haphazard or rough manner, with something dirty or sticky, especially using a thick substance (e.g. mud, plaster)
bludgin’ = (vernacular) bludging
bludging = avoiding work; not engaged in gainful employment; living off the work of others (to freeload); living off the proceeds of prostitution; to live on welfare benefits whilst avoiding work; to be idle (especially when others are working)
bugger = (slang) a friend, someone regarded with a sense of affection or closeness (e.g. “How are ya goin’, ya old buggar”); used in a similar fashion to “bastard” (e.g. “How are ya goin’, ya old bastard”), as both “bugger” and “bastard” can have negative as well as positive usages, depending on the circumstances and context of the conversation or interaction
Chinky = a Chinese person; something that is Chinese in origin or style (e.g. a “Chinky restaurant”); also spelt as “Chinkie”
cove = man, chap, fellow
covey = a diminutive form of “cove” [see: cove]
dial = (slang) face (from the dial, or face, of a clock)
garret = head (from a garret, being a room located just underneath the roof of a house; an attic)
harlot = a disreputable, flirtatious, promiscuous, or sexually permissive woman; a female prostitute, a whore; a woman who dresses in a disreputable fashion
kerb = a raised border between a road and the roadside edge of a footpath or another type of paved area (in American English, “kerb” is spelt “curb”, and a “footpath” is known as a “sidewalk”)
’Loo = (abbreviation) Waterloo, a suburb of Sydney (New South Wales)
push = a gang; historically, the term refers to a street gang; can also be used to refer to a group
Pushite = a member of a “push” (i.e. a member of a street gang)
the Rocks = an area of inner Sydney (New South Wales)
See: “The Rocks, New South Wales”, Wikipedia
stoush = hit, punch (stoush can also mean to fight or brawl)
swell = someone who is fashionably dressed; a toff, a dandy; someone who is socially prominent
tartar = someone who unexpectedly shows themselves to be formidable (may also refer to: someone who has a fierce, harsh, irritable, or intractable disposition; someone with an angry, unkind, or violent disposition; someone belonging to a ethnically Turkic people (also spelt “Tatar”), predominantly Muslims, who migrated from the Mongolian plateau in the 13th century to areas south-east and east of Russia)
Whatever happened to good old blokey poetry like this. I really like this type of literature, and so do many of me mates. This type of poetry is in true blue Aussie style. The do gooders an poofs with all their politically correct bullshit are trying to turn the Aussie blokes into henpecked pansies. Let’s stand up and keep literature like this alive.
Oh yeah mate, me too. We have lost the very essence that foreigners used to envy us for.
Me and my 2 sons still use snippets of this poem handed down from father and uncles. I was borne in 1947!
All you have to do is compose
The original version can be found in the book Snatches and Lays.
The Push was survival. For old mate to pound the vandals and earn the respect of a Captain’s Curse, says it all, an absolute bastard. X jet
Lawson was renowned for writing such poems for his mates at the pub and then cleaning them up for “The Bulletin”.
“The Bastard from the Bush” was the original and the “Leader of the Push” was the cleaned up version for publication.
At least that is what we were told in the fifties by the older generation.
He used to drink at Pfahlert’s Hotel, not far from the Bulletin printing office in George Street where he worked.
Interesting. I had not heard of Pfahlert’s Hotel before this.
The Dictionary of Sydney says Pfahlert’s Hotel opened in 1870 and was located in Wynyard (Sydney) on the corner of Carrington and Margaret Streets.
The original building was sold and demolished in 1930.
The license was transferred to premises in the former Arnott House at 50 Margaret Street, opposite Wynyard Square.
Pfahlert’s Hotel ceased trading on 21 July 1972 and the building in Margaret Street was demolished.
https://dictionaryofsydney.org/building/pfahlerts_hotel
KB
I first heard this in the ’50’s when I was Chief Mate on a little cattle/passenger ship running up the West Coast to Singapore and back, it was a slightly different version, I never learned it all, but recollect ‘he came from Port Augusta, all covered in camel dung, he came from Port Augusta where the barmaids eat their young’. I was pleased to see it in print, I think it’s a classic and can stand alongside ‘Eskimo Nell’, ‘Lochinvar’, ‘Little Yellow Idol’, ‘Rothenstall Annual Fair’ and ‘Murphy Will Not Sing Tonight’, etc. etc. Like ‘Road to Gundegai’ it’s just, – well, – Australia, wish I could do it all again.
Oh how I laughed when I read this last comment! Port Augusta was clearly as unfavoured an origin or destination as it is today !!@#$
Luci from Quorn
Barry, I was in the RAN for just over 13 years and I can recall many of the poems and ballads you mentioned.
Many of them were sung/told in pubs by drunken sailors, including yours truly……..I am now going on for 80 and have forgotten most of them, or can only remember bits and pieces of them
Like you I heard of Eskimo Nell and Little Yellow Idol when i was a ships engineer in the 1960’s. We don’t hear them any more and mores the pity
Bob
My Dad was a GP in Australia and NZ, he was a ski bum and just followed the snow. He met a Canadian Professor who could recite the whole of E as Eskimo Nell. After his death clearing out his stuff I searched high and low but never found it. It was on cassette. It fill nearly both sides of a 60,min cassette.
Heard this poem in the early seventies whist working in New Guinea at the power station build on Bouganville at Lolaho, the port facilitates, could only remember a couple of verses. Good to finally track down the lot. Old guy with a banjo knew the lot plus more bush ballards. Think his name was Bill, great entertainer around a fire.
I’m a young fella, Baz. Heard a few bush poems but not the ones you just listed. Will be trying to look ’em up. Love the stuff. Thanks, mate.
“Are you any good at billiards, can you cannon off the cush?”
“I can cannon off the dunny door!”, said the Bastard from the Bush.
“Been through the Isa ten times”
“& none the fucken wiser, said the Bastard from the Bush”
I remember having a book of ‘bawdy verse’ when I was a tacker in the 70s – the Bastard from the Bush was in there with some slight variation – the fourth stanza ended with
There was also “Charlotte the Harlot Lay Dying” (sung to the tune of “Bound for Botany Bay”) and one that I’ve never forgotten, but never seen since… it went like
There was also the limerick about the pretty maid from Aberystwyth, and dozens more that I didn’t commit to memory.
I was about 8 when I read that book – I found it in the library of Tennant Creek Area School, just after we arrived in Australia in the early 70s (from NZ).
Good times.
Last verse
But this was the case of the biter bit
There was no way of stopping it
From cu*t to tit she split
And the whole f*cking issue was covered in shit.
Missing verse
He tried a stopper, he tried a plug
But never could he hold his lug
He’d always early shoot
And dribble cum all over the rug.
Three versions of “The Dying Harlot” were printed in “Snatches And Lays”, available on the Internet Archive site.
https://archive.org/details/1962-snatches-and-lays-first-edition/page/n17/mode/1up
PDF link: https://archive.org/download/1962-snatches-and-lays-first-edition/1962_snatches_and_lays_first_edition.pdf
There once was a Vampire named Mable
Whose periods were particularly unstable
By the light of the moon & with the aid of a spoon
She drank herself under the table
This is actually the original poem written by Henry Lawson in the late 1800’s. His Publisher originally adapted it to The Captain of The Push, however, Henry actually managed to access other ‘publishing agencies’, which I believe was an Australian News Paper, in either 1899 or 1900, where the Original Script was disclosed.
I first heard The Bastard from the Bush while in the army as a nasho in the 1950s. There were several other verses, I don’t know whether they had been added by others or were original, for example:
Who’s that coming down the track
Cock and balls across his back
Well fuck me dead it’s Foreskin Fred
The Bastard from the Bush.
Would you like to kiss me daughter
Said the Leader of the Push
I’ll knock her down and fuck her
Said the Bastard from the Bush.
The version I heard of the poem quoted by Kratoklastes starts with:
A soldier told me before he died
(I don’t know if the bastard lied)
There was also a story that many of the other poems like Eskimo Nell and Angeline were written by professional entertainers who gave concerts to the troops. The idea was that if they were killed in battle the next day at least they died with a smile on their lips.
In the 1984 mini-series “ANZACS”, the character Pat Cleary (played by Paul Hogan), takes over an entertainment event by reciting this poem.
Even the nurses knew it. (Lots of laughter & cut very short.)
Given the series was based on the docu-novel “ANZACS”, (completely based on WW1 veterans recollections compiled by Patsy Adam-Smith) it seems to have been very well known during the First War.
if you can cut a line
thru scrub and pine
ride a hack
f**k a black
then you must be the joker
the bastard from the bush
The Bastard from the Bush version I knew started with
“Who’s this coming down the track,
With long slack balls dragging on the ground,
And the skin of his arse pulled over his head,
Well fuck me dead,
It’s Foreskin Ned,
The bastard from the Bush.
???
He threw an axe and fucked the blacks
???
Behind O’Riley’s pub the bastard made his stand,
a sly grin upon his face,
a bike chain in each hand,
one by one they came at him
and one by one they fell
with crunch of bone, unearthly moan and agonising yell,
till at last the bastard stood
his face begrimed with blood
“Get back to where you came from” he yelled,
“That’s somewhere in the Bush”.
PS
The full version was recited to myself and my good friend Foreskin Fitz, in 1970, by our mutual friend Scrotum Brown, who in mid-oration, little realised that his mother was standing behind him.
Now I know where I get it from. I wrote this after my potential girl invited me over to see her in bed with another bloke.
Bad Friday
She’s opened her hirsute gate
Let in a leech, not even a mate
And when he was finished
Her love juices diminished
Drunkenly drunk by her fate
One of the songs/poems mentioned above I knew in the RAN as the Engineers song or the Miners song in the 60’s and 70’s. It was also well known by the US Navy. It was sung to the tune of Froggy went a courting
The second last verse known to me went –
and now we come to the biter (or bitter or tragic) bit, ah hum, ah hum, now we come to the biter bit ah hum ah hum
Now we come to the tragic bit, there was no way of stopping it (ah hum 4 times)
She was split from arse to tit, she was split from arse to tit
she was split from arse to tit and the whole f…..g issue was covered in shit.
The ballad of Eskimo Nell was published in Playboy magazine in the 70’s
I am reminded of graffiti I read in Albany WA back in 1962:
“Here’s to Australia, the land of the Push,
Where a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
But if in that bush a young maiden should stand,
A push in the bush is worth two in the hand.”
Has anyone else ever heard it, or know its origin?
The bastard from the bush began for me
Who’s that coming down the track
with prick and balls all hanging slack
Well F… me dead said arse’ole ned
It’s dangerous Dan McGrew.
Coupled with the above is a piece of a poem that I’ve recalled often over more than 73 years:
The lights went dim, two shots rang out and a shiela screamed as her guts fell out.
Does any one remember where this came from?
Up in sunny Queensland
On the banks of Lake McGrew
My brother had a brothel
And a fuckin’ beauty too
And standing in the doorway
was Dangerous Dan McGrew
And on the bunk with a cunt full of spunk
Was Kate of Woolloomooloo
A gun went off
The lights went out
A woman screamed as her guts dropped out
So I got out
Fuck staying there!
Out of the dark and dreary, into the bright and cheery, strolled a matelot, pissed as a newt.
The lights went out, two shots rang out, a woman screamed, her guts fell out. I walked out. I wasn’t staying in there!
This website is a great resource for exploring Australian verse! I particularly enjoyed the poems about the beauty of the Australian bush, like “Night in the Bush” – it really captures the unique atmosphere. Do you have any recommendations for other poems that evoke the Australian landscape?
I don’t have a list of poems re the Australian landscape; however, you could try looking through Kendall’s poetry.
http://www.australianculture.org/henry-kendall-works/
Two of his popular works spring to mind:
http://www.australianculture.org/mountains-henry-kendall/
http://www.australianculture.org/on-a-cattle-track-henry-kendall/
Of course, there’s always the ubiquitous “Core of My Heart” [“My Country”], by Dorothea Mackellar
http://www.australianculture.org/core-of-my-heart-dorothea-mackellar/
You could look through the “poetry” category as well; however, there’s over 2000 poems there, so it could take a while.
https://www.australianculture.org/category/poetry/
Good luck with your poem-hunting!
For those interested – Many moons ago I was mixing in australian history, folk, lore and so on. I have a book that I consider of value “Snatches And Lays” – that happens to fall into this category.
I have digitised in image and text form, and is on my filing system should anybody want, BUT – how to circulate?
If we don’t look after OUR culture and history, it will be lost due to this once fine nation being “culturally and numerically enriched” from places elsewhere (exception being NZ of course)
Lol. Once upon a time most of our decent bands came from NZ. ie Dragon, Split Enz, Crowded House.
I found a copy of “Snatches And Lays” online, on the Internet Archive site.
It’s probably a good idea for people to look at it now, before some Woke idiot deletes it.
https://archive.org/details/1962-snatches-and-lays-first-edition/
PDF link: https://archive.org/download/1962-snatches-and-lays-first-edition/1962_snatches_and_lays_first_edition.pdf
Tony Abbott is sharp…let’s be blunt,
Legend has it he led from the front,
Always strong with a plan till the shit hits the fan,
It’s no wonder he’s thought but a CUNning and despicable poliTician!
There is a young lass from Lagoda,
Who has an erotic pagoda;
The walls in the halls,
Are festooned with the balls,
And the tools of the fools who bestrode ‘er.
I know a bloke who can recite the entirety of “The Bastard from the Bush” – he learnt it as a young man, and can still do the whole thing now (he’s about 70).
When I was a kid, my mum would recite the following poem at home (which she learnt as a child):
Foo Yung Sung jumped out of bed,
“Who chucked the dung at me?” he said;
“It was not I” said Dim Bung Fung,
“I was in the dunny when the dung was flung”.
My mum would rarely say anything risqué, so it was quite amusing to hear her recite those lines.
I first heard this poem recited by my very good friend. MAJ. Denis Ayuob then a Sapper.
We were serving in Borneo.
Denis got up during dinner at the OR’s mess, got everyone to be quiet, stood on one of the mess tables and let it fly.
He finished to tumultuous round of applause.
Through his long career in the Army he never changed.
Held the record for having an artificial heart implanted prior to receiving a heart transplant.
He passed away some years later in Brisbane.
Denis was a one off. I miss him so much.
Dick Beck