Black Billy Tea

DESCRIPTION: ""Kick out your fire, boy, Roll up your pack, Don't forget your billy, boy, Billy burnt and black... Black billy tea, boy, That's the stuff for me." It's better than beer. It keeps miners alive. It helps a man in a bog. It even helps catch game
AUTHOR: Words: Joe Charles / Music: Les Cleveland
EARLIEST DATE: 1959 (recording by Les Cleveland, Canterbury Ballads of Joe Charles, Part I)
KEYWORDS: food
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Bailey/Roth-ShantiesByTheWay-NZ, pp. 149-150, "Black Billy Tea" (1 text)
Cleveland-NZ-GreatNewZealandSongbook, pp. 24-25, "Black Billy Tea" (1 text, 1 tune)
Garland-FacesInTheFirelight-NZ, pp. 41-42, 116, "(Black Billy Tea)" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Joe Charles, _Black Billy Tea: New Zealand Ballads_, Whitcoulls Publishers, 1981, pp. 6-7, "Black Billy Tea" (1 text)
NOTES [68 words]: Joe Charles reports that, in the 1950s, he was asked to put on the billy for the local shearers, and the Ray Pareka, the gun, told him, "No dish-water, Joe -- I like it BLACK!" The rhythm apparently came from an engine in the shed. The song has been recorded several times; one version, by Phil Garland, was "rearranged" -- which I suspect means Garland improved the tune and perhaps butchered the words. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: BaRo149

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