I once knew a feller a travelling mate not bad as fellers go
He was happiest when he was miserable if ever that could be so
He'd wake up every mornin' with the world upon his back
And so for the want of a better name we called him Happy Jack
If ever you travelled on outback tracks as most us sometimes do
With anxious eyes on the petrol gauge in the hope it would see you through
You're a 100 miles from nowhere and eighty still to go
You'll hear his voice like the crack of doom The petrol's gettin' low
And when you're out on the Black Soul flats
And you know what some rain can do
You hope for the best as you head for the west
Then you whisper a prayer or two
And just when you're halfway over and starting to breath again
You say with sigh and a mournful eye I think we're in for rain
And when on a long and lonely run with nothing in between
The town you left is away in the past the next one a distant dream
He'll prick up his ears and listen and then in accents low
I don't like the noise she's makin' boss the diff's about to go
When you've bumped over corrugations so deep you could bury a cow
You say to yourself It's pretty bad but the worst must be over now
Then he'll look at you with a woeful look and furrows on his brow
The last fifty miles on the road they say is the worst in Australia now
Oh I wonder where he is today this travelling mate I had
Where ever he is it's safe to say That things are really bad
If it's not the diff it's something else or the petrol's gettin' low
It's pounds to peanuts and that's a bet something's about to go