THE PUB WITH NO BEER
In 1957 Gordon Parsons came up with a humorous little ditty. He had been singing it around and when Slim Dusty was recording "Saddle Boy" and being stuck for a song for the flip side, Gordon said, "Why don't you use that song I've been singing about". Slim recorded it and it took off like a rocket, not only here, but overseas, becoming the first and last gold record on old 78 R.P.M. Recordings. It was followed by the answer to the sequel too, and the Pub Rock and Slim will be forever associated with the luckless inhabitants of the outback pub.
While there is no doubt that Gordon Parsons put this song together, there is also little if any doubt where the inspiration came from. Dan Sheahan wrote two songs during the war years, "A Pub Without Beer", which came about because the Yanks had drained the pub of it's last drop, and the he wrote another song on how the song came to be written and called it just that, "How The Pub Without Beer Came To Be Written". The huge success of "A Pub Without Beer" is a tribute to the talents of both men.
Dan Sheahan
A Pub Without Beer
It is lonely away from your kindred and all
In the bushland at night when the warrigals call
It is sad by the sea where the wild breakers boom
Or to look on a grave and contemplate doom.
But there's nothing on earth half as lonely and drear
As to stand in the bar of a pub without beer.
Madam with her needles sits still by the door
The boss smokes in silence - he is joking no more
There's a faraway look on the face of the hum
While the barmaid glares down at the paint of her thumb.
Once it stood by the wayside all stately and proud
'Twas a home to the loafers - a joy to the crowd
Now all silent the roof-tree that oftentimes rang
When the navvies were paid and the cane-cutters sang.
Some are sleeping their last in the land far from here
And I feel all alone in a pub without beer.
They can hang to their coupons for sugar and tea
And the shorage of sandshoes does not worry me
And though benzine and razors be both frozen stiff
What is wrong with the horse and the old-fashioned ziff?
'Mid the worries of war there's but one thing I fear
'Tis to stand in the bar of a pub without beer.
Oh you brew of brown barley, what charm is thine?
'Neath thy spell men grow happy and cease to repine
The cowards become brave and the weak become strong
The dour and the grumpy burst forth into song.
If there's aught to resemble high heaven down here
'Tis the place of joy where they ladle out beer.
How The Pub Without Beer
Came To Be Written
One day in the town at the time of the blitz
So dry I was spitting out threepenny bits
I went to the pub and I called for a "pot"
But I found that the yankees had gobbled the lot.
The boss was laid out in his favourite chair
And writ on his dial was a look of despair
Madam and young Flossie looked languid and faint
All gone was the glamour, the powder and paint.
The yardman had left with a rope and a knife
Reports had come in he had taken his life
The cook and the slushie were out at the back
They both had gone down to a nervous attack.
Old Billy the hum he lay under a tree
The poor fellow "had it" 'twas easy to see
He was not improving 'twas just the reverse
We'd soon see him sailing away in the hearse.
The dog with a sorrowful look on his face
Kept moping and mooning all over the place
He sat on his tail and he looked up at me
And started to wail like an Irish Banshee.
I raced to the water and turned on the tap
And drank as I swore at the Hun and the Jap
Sez I to myself - "Better get out of here.
What good is a town when the pub has no beer?"
Day Dawn Hotel - INGHAM North Queensland
The Original Hotel that the American Troops drank dry during WW2 which the two above poems were based.
The Hotel later burnt down.
© July, 2001 by Ian Hands
