Red Raggin' - The Redgum Lyrics Archive
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      • If You Don't Fight You Lose (1978) >
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        • I've Been To Bali Too
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        • Talk
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      • Long Run / Littlehampton's Calling Me (1981) >
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        • I Was Only Nineteen (A Walk In The Light Green)
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        • ASIO
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        • Friday Night
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        • I've Been To Bali Too
        • Still Life
      • Just Another Moment On Your Own / Kerang (Moon Over Water) (1985) >
        • Just Another Moment On Your Own
        • Kerang (Moon Over Water)
      • The Drover's Dog / It Doesn't Matter To Me (1985) >
        • The Drover's Dog
        • It Doesn't Matter To Me
      • Running With The Hurricane / A Street To Die (1986) >
        • Running With The Hurricane
        • A Street To Die
      • Roll It On Robbie / Empty Page (1987) >
        • Roll It On Robby
        • Empty Page
    • Redgum best of albums >
      • Everything's Legal, Anything goes (1985) >
        • Just Another Moment On Your Own
        • I've Been To Bali Too
        • The Diamantina Drover
        • Gladstone Pier
        • I Was Only Nineteen (A Walk In The Light Green)
        • Long Run
        • It Doesn't Matter To Me
        • Killing Floor
        • ASIO
        • Where Ya Gonna Run To
        • Poor Ned
        • The Drover's Dog
        • Liner pictures
      • If You Don't Fight You Lose (1985) >
        • I've Been To Bali Too
        • The Diamantina Drover
        • I Was Only Nineteen (A Walk In The Light Green)
        • Gladstone Pier
        • Long Run
        • It Doesn't Matter To Me
        • Still Life
        • ASIO
        • Where Ya Gonna Run To
        • Killing Floor
      • The Very Best of Redgum (1987) >
        • Roll It On Robby
        • I Was Only Nineteen (A Walk In The Light Green)
        • I've Been To Bali Too
        • The Drover's Dog
        • ASIO
        • Friday Night
        • Just Another Moment On Your Own
        • Yarralumla Wine
        • Caught In The Act
        • Brown Rice and Kerosene
        • Gladstone Pier
        • Spirit of the Land
        • The Diamantina Drover
        • Talk
        • Running With The Hurricane
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      • Against The Grain (2004) >
        • Poor Ned
        • Killing Floor
        • Servin' U.S.A.
        • Maria
        • Ted
        • Long Run
        • Brown Rice and Kerosene
        • Yarralumla Wine
        • The Last Frontier
        • Where Ya Gonna Run To
        • Lear Jets Over Kulgera
        • The Diamantina Drover
        • I Was Only Nineteen (A Walk In The Light Green)
        • I've Been To Bali Too
        • ASIO
        • Spirit of the Land
        • Gladstone Pier
        • Still Life
        • Just Another Moment On Your Own
      • The Essential Redgum (2011) >
        • Poor Ned
        • Servin' U.S.A.
        • Killing Floor
        • Beaumont Rag
        • One More Boring Thursday Night in Adelaide
        • Carrington Cabaret
        • HMAS Australia
        • Maria
        • Ted
        • It Doesn't Matter To Me
        • Virgin Ground
        • Domination Quickstep
        • Stewie
        • Nuclear Cop
        • Long Run
        • 100 Years On
        • Brown Rice and Kerosene
        • Lear Jets Over Kulgera
        • The Last Frontier
        • Where Ya Gonna Run To
        • Caught In The Act
        • Yarralumla Wine
        • The Federal Two-Ring Circus
        • Working Girls
        • Fabulon
        • The Diamantina Drover
        • I Was Only Nineteen (A Walk In The Light Green)
        • I've Been To Bali Too
        • ASIO
        • Friday Night
        • Spirit of the Land
        • Gladstone Pier
        • Still Life
        • Just Another Moment On Your Own
        • The Drover's Dog
        • Running With The Hurricane
        • When Your Luck Ran Out
        • Blood Upon The Rain
    • Live-only songs >
      • Old Mal Fraser Had A Farm
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      • The Day McArthur Farted And Saved The Town From Drought
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    • John Schumann albums >
      • Etched In Blue (1987) >
        • Borrowed Ground
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        • Borrowed Ground Reprise 1788-1988
      • John Schumann Goes Looby-Loo (1989) >
        • She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain
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        • Mum Doesn't Like Us Playing The Drums Around Here
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        • For The Children
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      • True Believers (1993) >
        • If I Close My Eyes
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      • The Very Best of John Schumann (2002) >
        • I Was Only Nineteen (A Walk In The Light Green)
        • Borrowed Ground
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        • Thunder Across The Reef
        • Safe Behind The Wire
        • For The Children
        • If I Close My Eyes
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        • If The War Goes On
        • One True Game
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      • Gelignite Jack (2007) >
        • I Was Only Nineteen (A Walk In The Light Green)
        • Long Run
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        • Where Ya Gonna Run To
        • I've Been To Bali Too
        • Borrowed Ground
        • Thunder Across The Reef
        • Holy Mary
        • For The Children
        • If I Close My Eyes
        • Eyes on Fire
        • Clancy Of The Overflow
        • One True Game
        • Faces In The Street
        • To Hannah
    • John Schumann singles >
      • Safe Behind The Wire / He's Got The Money (1987) >
        • Safe Behind The Wire
        • He's Got The Money
      • Borrowed Ground / Borrowed Ground The Headphone Mix (1987) >
        • Borrowed Ground
      • Holy Mary / Coming Home (1987) >
        • Holy Mary
        • Coming Home
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      • If I Close My Eyes / Leigh Creek Road (1993) >
        • If I Close My Eyes
        • Leigh Creek Road
      • One True Game / Just Another Moment On Your Own (2002) >
        • One True Game
        • Just Another Moment On Your Own
    • Hugh McDonald solo albums >
      • Lawson (1994) >
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      • Where's The Party? (2002) >
        • With Or Without You
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      • Spirit Of The Land (2007) >
        • Streams of Whiskey
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    • Vagabond Crew >
      • Lawson (2005) >
        • To An Old Mate
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      • Behind The Lines (2008) >
        • Boy On The Run
        • The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
        • Scots Of The Riverina
        • No Man's Land
        • Ted
        • To An Old Mate
        • Just Another Moment On Your Own
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        • Rachel
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        • I'll Be Gone
        • Waltzing Matilda
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  • Untitled

Ted lyrics

On Virgin Ground (1980), Against The Grain (2004), Behind The Lines (2008) and The Essential Redgum (2011)

Ted (Michael Atkinson)

On a back block down Salisbury Plains
Ted was born in 1895
Thrust from the loins on to rusty soil
And the cord was cut with a scythe
He said "People there are city folk today
And they couldn't tell shit from clay
A ripening crop of stobie poles
There's no regrets when the memory roams
That earth is in me bones"

Did his bit in the first World War
Took the shilling to fight the Hun
Mud up to his crotch in Flanders fields
And the gas eating out his lungs
He said "Me best mate died hanging on the barbed wire
And when the attack was through
We took some prisoners to HQ
And shared a fag and a yarn or two
They were the same as me and you"

And I asked old Ted what history meant
As he sharpened his hedging shears
"What a bloody fool question that is my boy
I lived it for 83 years"

See him every year on Anzac Day
Swilling beers down at the Rex Hotel
He'd laugh with his mates and go deep in thought
Where he went even he couldn't tell
He said "King and Country, cock'n'bull
We fought just to survive
The anger might have faded still this feeling grabs me deep inside
I guess you could call it pride"

As a navvy on the line in the Nullarbor
The Depression left its scars
Heaving cold steel rails in the burning sun
And freezing beneath the stars
He said "If you escaped the susso queues
You had a hell of price to pay
And when time flowed like an open wound
I'd blow me dough on a Saturday
And drink the pain away"

On Sunday arvo he'd sit and talk
Over a dozen cold West End
Of what was gained and what was lost
And would never come again
He said "Money you know it comes and goes
On booze and rent and fags
You can make a fortune on overtime
And lose it all on the nags

But years of toil with a bunch of mates
You know it leaves you satisfied
Though we never moved a mountain
We sure gave it a try"
Pick the wheat from the chaff
And the steel from the scurf
And the honest man from the liar
If wisdom came by other names
Ted was earth and fire

On the day that old Ted died
No-one would have known
Buried in a pauper's grave
He lived and died alone
And the 727s roared overhead
Withe the drone of the angry roads
There seemed a pause for just a while
And the silence was heard around for miles
And the silence was heard for miles

1980 Virgin Ground album version
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