Old Gidgee Tree (Live From Australia/1973 / 1996 Remaster) - Slim Dusty
I will tell a story true but you may doubt me
And you may need a little salt to get it down
A Coastal town improvement league decided
To add some outback flavour to their town
They transported to the coast a knarled old gidgee
Transplanted it within their civic park
It looked out of place with tough old twisted branches
And scars where stock had rubbed against it's bark
Well they cared for it and soon it started blooming
But the seeds that fell lay dormant on the ground
Oh the coastal trees and shrubs around ignored it
And soon it's leaves and branches withered down
As it happened in the town there lived a bushman
Who'd been ruined by hardships of a drought
And one day as he was strolling through that parkland
He saw that tree and gave a joyful shout
So he went there ev'ry day and dreamed beneath it
And somehow that old tree just seemed to know
For it started blooming once again and this time
The seeds that fell at once began to grow
But the man was out of place just as the tree was
He was old and knew no other way of life
And his health was failing through the smog pollution
And the knowledge of his hard financial strife
So the bushman died beneath that tree one ev'nin'
And it's strange to say within a week or so
The seedlings and the tree began to wither
No matter what was done to make them grow
For the old tree had no will to go on living
Like the spirit broken bushman from the west
He'd been brought there by some relatives in kindness
Like the tree the people thought they did their best
But where ringers boiled their quarts beneath that old tree
And tied their bridal reins upon it limbs
There was push bikes leaned against it and at night
There were parties with their stubbies and their cans
'Tis the story of a tree and one old bushman
Who were taken from their home against their will
And the moral of it is that very often
For it's well intended kindness that can kill