He came in from Melbourne on a Pioneer
Adelaide morning, warm and clear
And a past that wasn't quite within the law
And he opened yet another ten dollar room
To a broken blind and a rising gloom
And a threadbare cotton carpet on the floor
And the muzak piping through the corridor
Played that song he heard before
It went, who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
A suitcase held with rope and twine
Cleaner's shirt and an open mind
A trail of debts to mark where he had been
A million miles of racetracks
And torn tickets on the ground
And his only son cut down in Phnom Penh green
A police car crawled down Gouger street
As he looked for some place cheap to eat
It was just another curbside interview
With a warrant out in Adelaide
For a bad decision that he once made
An instinct took his tongue and pulled him through
So he left his hotel room that night
In time to make a midnight flight
With an overloaded truckie going east
And the line ran round inside his head
Was it something that his best friend said
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?"
A billabong's just a grubby pond that's busy washing ore
The squatter drives a thoroughbred steel
And if he runs forever, will his life be all in vain?
At least that's how it makes him feel
And the truckie pushed a cassette in
As they rumbled through the Grampians
It played Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
Waltzing Matilda,
Waltzing Matilda,
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
Waltzing Matilda,
Waltzing Matilda,
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
And the truckie pushed a cassette in
As they rumbled through the Grampians
It played Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?