Pits and Pieces
from Warren Fahey's Collecting Swag


Warren Fahey has been collecting, researching and performing Australian bush songs for many years. He has toured extensively both solo and with his pioneering group The Larrikins. He also plays English concertina. Warren has made several recordings and has published eleven books on various aspects of Australian folklore.



People's Proper Places

In 1991 I began a series of correspondence with a Mr Bob Taylor of Rockhampton that proved to be a most fascinating journey. Bob was one of those old time Australians who loved the poetry of the people. His vast repertoire always amazed me and especially when he would pull a real gem out of his memory. I was particularly interested in a poem he sent me titled 'People's Proper Places' as it reminded me of an English song I had heard in the seventies by the Critic's Group led by Ewan MacColl. They are definitely related!

People's Proper Places

The Brewer should to Malta go,
The boobies all to Scully.
The Quakers to the Friendly Isles,
The furriers off to Chile    

The little marching screaming babes,
Who break our nightly rest,
Should be packed off to Babylon
To Lapland or to Brest.

Spithead cooks go forth to Greece,
And while the miser wants
His passage to the Guinea Coast,
Spendthrifts are in the Straits

Spinsters should to the Needles go,
Wine drinkers to Burgundy,
Gourmands should lunch at the Sandwich Isles,
Wags at the Bay of Fundy

Bachelors to the United States
Spinsters the Isle of Man.
Let gardeners go to Botany Bay
And shoe-blacks to Japan

Thus immigrants and miss-placed men
Would here no longer vex us
And all who ain't provided for
Had better go to Texas!

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