Redgum - Another Country lyrics

Foundryman and rigger, served my craft with sk** and pride Furnaces barked at the sun, and welders spartked the night Merchantmen and frigates, we moulded ribs and shaped the keels We forget a nation's fleets from white-hot rivers of tungsten steel The shipyards lying idle now, and rust flakes off the cranes Seagulls echo in the empty docks, but a silent power remains A cold north wind tugs at my coat as I walk these oily sands There's a life on a punchcard clock, and dust upon my hands. My brother played the ponies, a breaker by his trade Sailed for Cairo in '41, Third Light Horse Brigade Rode the winds of fortune, cast his life in a two-up game I carry his coins, they were in his hat, from Tobruk to El Alamein There's dust upon his photograph, a young face bold and tanned He told me “Always judge the odds that sacrifice demands” His bones lie out at Sandgate, where the waste creeks meet the sea There's gutter cars and salvage yards where brumbies once ran free. The past is another country, the maps are torn and frayed Steel is cast for Wall Street now, and ships are foreign made The boys grow lean and restless, see the anger in their eyes I watch from my verandah, see the gulf grow deep and wide Politicians crow with promises, in a year it's blood from stone This dusty town grows sad and weary, still I call it home There's an old man combing memories, and shells upon a beach In his shadow walks a dreamer, just beyond his reach