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Collected from JOE WATSON Caringbah, NSW Recorded 1973 onwards The Stump SpeechLadies and Gentlemen, hearers and shearers,Both of the feminine and sheminine gender; I've dubiously requested myself to attend here today, To offer myself as a candipeel – I mean a candidate – And take this just opportunity, of just coming out of gaol, To address myself t the task of holding up the lamp of ignorance, To the splendid darkness of your glorious thickheadedness. What does any man, woman or child, Who has reached the age of fifty years for centuries Know about politics? Nothing! Nothing! Double that! But look my fellow grands, I know the whole family, There's Polly Ticks, Mrs Ticks, Tom Ticks, And stop your tickling Jock! The science of politics, ladies and gentlemen, Lies in the art of futility and saying a lot, Without saying anything; Of appealing to the inclomerated objectivity, Electoral connectivity, without glomus, The filguistics perdouchrasy of the status in quo. The man woman or kid that doesn't follow politics Is living in a fool's paradise. How can they ever feel the luxury of knowing – That they are downtrodden slaves, Withering and groaning under the iron heel Of a blasted tyranny? Some people ask me which side I am on? Well. I'm on the side that's in! There's no pickings on the side that's out! (Not that pickings would trouble me in the slightest, I'm used to picking (pockets) and, of course, opah. Some people ask me if I'm a socialist? Will you take me up to the pub then? I'll drink as free and as sociable as anyone's expenses will allow. But what can be more beautiful, more seraphic, more magnificent Than the battle cry of the socialist? You get everything for nothing and everyone gets sixpence over the right change. Them are my sentiments, ladies and gentlemen, And I don't practice what I preach! Well now, let us pass a few buckets of cold water, Onto some of the burning issues of today. Why shouldn't a man be allowed to marry his deceased wife's sister? There's nothing in that. Why shouldn't a man be allowed to put rat poison in his brother-in-laws tea? There's nothing in that. Why shouldn't I be allowed to come up onto this stage and bawl out anything that comes into my head? There's nothing in that! But look my fellow grands, Some things are made as they go on, Can we any longer submit to the state of affairs That allows the present to ride past, In all the splendour of an electric tramway, While we, we, the flesh, the skin, the bones, the hair, And the tissue of the land? No! We haven't got a feather bed to put in our mouths, Or a sausage roll to lie upon. Strike home! Strike for freedom (and free beer), So that for bygone days gone by, Our ancestors for generations to come, Will point with pride to our portraits modern, In the chamber of horrors, and say to those gentlemen, To those our forefathers, our five fathers, Our six fathers and our godfathers (Those and the pub up the road) – we owe our all. So let's fanfare and speak the trumpet, And yell to us a perspiring prosperity, Till the mystical ramifications of the concoctions And irritability of the conqueorous spontaneity – Fellow electors and blithering idiots…. I bid you all good evening! |