Gladstone Pier

He was a sailor Swarthy lean and proud He could take a schooner through a big sea swell Aloof in the mainland crowd She loved his quiet laughter Like a boy he'd shrug and grin Beach stretched wide at Port Mackay With dreams upon the wind He wore her name in a rose tattoo Long weekends of gins and lime She lived in Cairns made plans to move Checkout girl part-time And rumour said there's a boom ahead You can make your future here By the Gladstone pier A two roomed five row shelter Empty hopes, the damp, the flies Prices hiked her face grew tight And conversation died And the foreman at the smelter said you're much too old Try the cane fields furthers north And the clerk at the market said we don't buy trouble There's a strike down at the port Then a six-day shift in a filthy pit The drag lines gouging coal The black dust gnaws at your lungs and pores And anger rots your soul And the queue round the block waits for you to drop Can you take it for another year By the Gladstone Pier Every Sunday he'd walk alone Casting pebbles at the passing waves Plunge in brine cleanse his pride A stronger man remains The crunch of shale and distant sails Ached within his bones And ships upon the tide Bound for ports unknown Soon he drank for comfort She grew bitter in the weeks between The nights of beer and hollow cheer And love became routine They fought, she left him crying Angry words in a last café In desperation on a lonely night She took the bus to Cairns next day And Gladstone couples break that way Mutual blame and no regrets And boomtown blues just fade to grey And all that's left are debts she cried: "I've got to leave this dirty old town The rattle of broken men And break these chains and wash the pain And put to sea again Drained all my passion my anger and my fears And sank them in a flagon Under Gladstone pier" She saw him through the Greyhound window As the dawn glowed on the chrome Standing by the pier under sullen skies Sea winds calling home From surfers up to Townsville Past the high-rise colonies Fast food, cheap hotels Two more boom-town refugees