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From: Bill Wootton
Also some sort of larrikin triumphing against the odds, particularly
well-bred odds.
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As in ...
THE BASTARD FROM THE BUSH
As the night was falling slowly over city, town and bush,
From a house in Hogan'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? said the Captain of the Push.
'I'd take baby's a maiden,' said the Bastard from the Bush.
Would you bash a bloody copper, if you caught the cunt alone.
Would you stoush a swell or chinky, split his garret with a stone,
Would you make you wife a harlot, would swear off work for good?'
Again that bastard's voice rang out. 'My fucking oath, I would!
'Do you help the girls pick gumleaves?' 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?' said 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 be 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 upon your 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.'
http://warrenfahey.com/Sydney-Folklore/SECTION-18/sfp-18-Bastard-Bush.html
I'm at work (intermittently, interminably) on an updating of S.J.Farmer's
_Musa Pedestris_, which will conclude with a section of Larrikin poetry. At
the moment, this encompasses the following, and any suggestions for
additions would be much welcome -- including particular poems by C.J.Dennis,
whom I intend to get round to reading sometime.
If I were closer to Sydney, I'd look into the National Library, and check
through the entire run of back numbers of _The Dead Bird_. Either the
originals or the microfilm -- http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1921071.
But alas, an ocean intervenes ... Unless someone would happen to be passing
by there?
Robin
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6. Larrikin Verse
“Fanny Flukem’s Ball’ – c 1890/91: “Now, listen, rorty bummers …”
From Graham Seal , The lingo – listening to Australian English, p. 43
W.T.Googe, “The Australian Slanguage” -- 1898
“'Tis the everyday Australian …” (From The Bulletin, 4 June 1898.)
Louis Esson, Red Gums and Other Verses (Melbourne, 1912):
“Back Ter Little Lon” -- Renie’s left er ’usband—eighteen months aw’y,
“Jugger” -- Give the push the office …
“The Larrikin’s Hop”: Did you ever see a larrikins' hop …
From Melissa Bellenta, “Leary kin: Australian larrikins and the blackface
minstrel dandy”
WOOLLOOMOOLOO LAIR – pre-1895
“On the day that I was born, it was a cold & a frosty morn …”
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=3254
[Slightly edited by RH, 31.10.09]
‘Oh, my name it is McCarty / And I'm a rorty party' -- 1895
Text from: Melissa Bellanta, “The Larrikin 's Hop: Larrikinism and
Late Colonial Popular Theatre".
Original in Djin-djin, the Japanese bogie-man (1895)
Henry Lawson, THE CAPTAIN OF THE PUSH:
“As the night was falling slowly down on city, town and bush …”
http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Henry_Lawson/19132
THE BASTARD FROM THE BUSH:
“As the night was falling slowly over city, town and bush …”
http://warrenfahey.com/Sydney-Folklore/SECTION-18/sfp-18-Bastard-Bush.html
I'VE CHUCKED UP MY PUSH FOR THE DONAH:
“I 'ave done with playin' fan-tan, and I've chuck'd the two-up school,
http://warrenfahey.com/Sydney-Folklore/SECTION-14/sfp-section-14.html
LARRIKIN DITTY:
“Oh fare ye well gallant livers …”
http://warrenfahey.com/Sydney-Folklore/SECTION-14/sfp-section-14.html
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