Would you take me back to the old Murrumbidgee?
I hear the call of the bush and the didgeridoo.
Would you take me back to the old Murrumbidgee?
To that sweep of river that we once knew.
A river that’s subtle. A river that’s strong.
A giver of life, both ancient and young.
Of fauna that’s gentle, where bell-birds are rung,
not in fear or alarm, but in passionate song.
Would you take me back to the old Murrumbidgee?
To the clamour of parrots that clutter its shore.
Would you take me back to the old Murrumbidgee?
Where we can be happy once more.
A river that’s subtle. A river that’s strong.
As elusive as lovers discovered along
its banks and its beaches, and the creatures that throng,
in the currents we favour to carry us on.
Where we shall uncover truth.
Where we can recover youth.
Would you take me back to the old Murrumbidgee?
My home’s in the bush with the grey kangaroo.
Would you take me back to the old Murrumbidgee?
Where I burnt all my bridges for you.
I burned all my bridges,
my boats were ablaze.
The crossing was dangerous,
you thought I was crazed.
There was no turning back
in my resolute phase,
when I burned all my bridges for you.
The stanchions were melting with the heat of the fire.
Great cables were whipping like the sperm of desire.
Giant plumes of smoke and flame reaching higher,
from the line of the water to the peak of the spire,
the frame of its structure: a funeral pyre.
Cremating the ghosts, long dead in the past,
– confusion, delusion, ashes at last,
released in that bursting inferno and blast!
When I burned all my bridges for you.
Would you take me back to the old Murrumbidgee?
To a quiver of budgie and white cockatoo.
Would you take me back to the old Murrumbidgee?
Forever a river to savour anew.
A river that’s subtle. A river that’s strong.
A giver of meaning. Of living long gone.
While a jackass is laughing and cooing among
a mass murder of crow in full-throated tongue.
Would you take me back to the old Murrumbidgee?
I feel the pull of the bush and the didgeridoo.
Would you take me back to the old Murrumbidgee?
An image to flatter my burning-bridge blues.
Would you take me back to the old Murrumbidgee?
To the clatter of lovebirds that dapple its shore.
Would you take me back to the old Murrumbidgee?
Where we can be happy as never before.
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