JACK POBAR
Holberton St Toowoomba
Recorded May 1973
Tune: Ben Bolt
Sam Holt/Black Alice
Oh, don't you remember Black Alice, Sam Holt?
Black Alice, so dusky and dark.
Oh, the old Mallee Gin with the straw through her nose
And teeth like a Moreton Bay shark.
Or the terrible sheep-wash tobacco she smoked,
In a gunyah up there by the lake.
Or the grubs that she roasted, the lizards she stewed,
And the damper you taught her to bake.
Oh, don't you remember the moon's silvery sheen,
And the Warrego sand ridges white?
And don't you remember the big bulldog ants
We caught in our blankets that night?
And don't you remember the creepers, Sam Holt,
That scattered their fragrance about?
And don't you remember the broken-down colt
You sold me and swore he was sound?
You were not the cleanest potato, Sam Holt,
You hadn't the cleanest of fins.
But you made your pile at the Tower, Sammy Holt,
And that covers the most of your sins.
And don't you remember the pasting you got
By the boys down in Callaghan's store,
When Tim Hooligan found a fifth ace in his hand
And you holding his pile upon four?
Oh, when's my time coming? Perhaps never, I think,
And it's likely enough, your old mate
Will be humping his drum on the Hughenden Road,
To the end of the chapter of fate.
