Ibrahim Eric Bogle

"Ibrahim"
-Eric Bogle

(Album: The Colour of Dreams)

Hey Ibrahim, tell me what do you think of Australia?
Do our beautiful desert sunsets fill you with wonder?
As the sky catches fire, and the trees and the mountains change colour
But I guess the view from this side of the barbed-wire's much better

So Ibrahim, can you tell me, why did you come here?
What dream were you chasing and what did you hope to find here?
Did you flee from your own native land because your life was in danger?
Or were the reasons much more mundane, just poverty and hunger?

Wrong path, wrong choice, wrong creed, wrong culture
Wrong place, wrong time, wrong dream and wrong colour

You see Ibrahim, there's something I've been meaning to tell you
Being hungry and poor bestows no special status upon you
We won't send you back, if you can prove they'd imprison or kill you
But if you're just going back home to starve, I'm afraid we can't help you

You see Ibrahim, you've become a bit of a problem
This world's full of refugees fleeing poverty, war and oppression
So to take in queue-jumpers like you, well it's out of the question
It would give the world's hungry and poor the wrong impression