> A.L. Lloyd > Songs > One of the Has-Beens

One of the Has-Beens

[ Roud - ; Ballad Index FaE156 ; Robert Stewart]

A.L. Lloyd sang One of the Has-Beens in 1958 on his Wattle album Across the Western Plains. He commented in the album's sleeve notes:

I first heard this one New Year's Day, in the late 1920's, in hospital in Cowra, N.S.W. The matron was away, and the patients had a party in the ward. A teamster from Grenfell sang the song, and one or two of the old bushwhackers took umbrage, because they thought the stranger was getting at them. I now learn from Stewart and Keesing's Old Bush Songs that One of the Has-Beens is the work of a former horse-breaker, shearer and gold-digger named Robert Stewart, born 1833 in N.S.W. The tune is that of the familiar early nineteenth century stage song, Pretty Polly Perkins.

Lyrics

A.L. Lloyd sings One of the Has-Beens

I'm one of the has-beens, a shearer I mean.
I once was a ringer and used to shear clean.
I could make the wool roll off like the soil from the plough;
But you may not believe it because I can't do it now.

Chorus (after each verse):

I'm as awkward as a new chum and I'm used to the frown
That the boss often shows me saying keep them blades down.

I've shore with Pat Hogan, Bill Bright and Jack Gunn,
Charlie Fergus, Tommy Leighton, and the great roaring Dunn
They brought from the Lachlan the best they could find;
But not one among them could leave me behind.

Well, It's no use complaining, I'll never say die.
Though the days of fast shearing for me have gone by.
I'll take the world easy, shear slowly and clean,
And I merely have told you just what I have been.

Acknowledgements

Lyrics copied from Mark Gregory's version on his Australian Folk Songs website and adapted to A.L. Lloyd's actual singing.