The Korean Blues

by Brian McMaugh 27706 1RAR
Written in Korea 1954

Sure the mountains of Korea
Are the worst I've ever seen
And I'm sick and tired of paddy fields
And daily Paludrine

There is dust upon my Bren gun
And there's grit inside the bore
My worries are fair dinkum
Like the bumpers on the floor

Oh there's silence, deathly silence
From beds around the wall
We're too tired to curse the army
We're too tired to curse at all

Sure my feet are sore and blistered
And my back feels like its broke
As I sit here on my bedroll
With a dennae in my poke

Sure, I beg you, Lord up younder
In that blue Korean sky
Take me home again to Aussie
Cos I feel I'm gonna die

Take me back to the Land of the Gumtree
Away, far away from Korea
For I long for a sight of the Harbour Bridge
And the taste of an Aussie beer

Oh to hear the voice of an Aussie girl
Or see a Kings Cross cop
Instead of these endless mountains
With out bunkers at the top

But I guess when home in a city pub
While we spend our hard earned pay
We'll think anew of times we had
And agree - them were the days

First Published in The Voice, February 2011