Blood upon the Rain Redgum

I nurse my mother in a mudbrick room
She weaves her days on a blanket loom
I face conscription when I reach eighteen
Old men starve and widows sigh
Behind the fences corn grows high
Every night there’s a disco
For the pimps and marketeers

Fat landowners know no shame
Trade Swiss francs and quaff champagne
In the hills they grow cocaine
For the dealers from the north
There’s no grave for heroes here
Some speak out and conquer fear
Every week more disappear
There’s blood upon the rain

Pall Mall softpacks, American guns
Government troops bask in the sun
Drawing straws for the whores from the shanty town
Beneath the truncheons you bow and scrape
You learn to hustle, you learn to hate
Bolt the doors when the squads patrol
And terror stalks the night

Suffer my country, children weep
So much pain and oh so deep
The people sow and the fascists reap
And conscience has no name
A new beginning or a hangman’s rope
While caution slept, our courage woke
We took up arms and we took up hope
There’s blood upon the rain