Vegie Bill - John Williamson

If you’ve ever been to the Kimberley

Just like old Vegie Bill

You’ll pine and whine to get back there

But he reckons he never will

'Cause he’s got too long in th tooth

And he’s taken a turn or two

So his missus bought him a picture book

Said 'That'll just have to do'

So I’m goin' up there for the old bloke

Kunnunurra, to see his mate

I’ll send him a card from the Fitzroy

He’ll show it around 'The Glengarry'

To Nifty and his wife

Then he’ll start all over again

Reminiscing his Kimberley life

He’ll go on about the scenery, unbelievable

Nothing else comes near it in the land

He said a lot of his mates were Aboriginal

They took him like a brother

Well, he had a lot of stories

But I reckon his favourite

Was how his mate brought his brother home to rest

Still stiff and frozen solid from the morgue

And he kept the beer cartons cold on his chest

Well the family couldn’t come at the vegetables

Or the sausages neatly wrapped around the dead

So they had to dig for yam and eat goanna

And hunt for wallaby instead

Well, Bill used to sell vegetables to the opal miners

Off his humble little one-ton truck

He didn’t make a lot of dough

But he made a heap of friends out there

Where they move a thousand ton of dirt for an ounce of luck

You know I kinda feel sorry for old Bill

Sipping another beer in the summer breeze

He’s still up there in the North in hi heart and his mind

Grading a gravel road in the Kimberley