A Pub Without Beer

Original poem by Dan Sheahan

It is lonely away from, your kindred and all

In the bushland at night when the warrigals call –

It is sad by the sea where the wild breakers boom Or to look on a grave and contemplate doom.

But there’s nothing on earth half as lonely and drear As to stand in the bar of a pub without beer. Madam with her needles still sits by the door –

The boss smokes in silence – he is joking no more

There’s a faraway look on the face of the hum

While the barmaid glares down at the paint on her thumb. The cook has gone cranky and the yardman is queer

Oh, a terrible place is a pub without beer. Once it stood by the wayside all stately and proud – ’Twas a home to the loafers – a joy to the crowd –

Now all silent the roof-tree that oftentimes rang

When the navvies were paid and the cane-cutters sang. Some are sleeping their last in the land far from here And I feel all alone in a pub without beer. They can hang to their coupons for sugar and tea

And the shortage of sandshoes does not worry me –

And though benzine and razors be both frozen stiff What is wrong with the horse and the old-fashioned ziff. ’Mid the worries of war there’s but one thing I fear

’Tis to stand in the bar of a pub without beer. Oh, you brew of brown barley, what charm is thine? ’Neath thy spell men grow happy and cease to repine. The cowards become brave and the weak become strong The dour and the grumpy burst forth into song. If there’s aught to resemble high heaven down here

’Tis the palace of joy where they ladle out beer.

Slim, here with wife, Joy McKean, and Reg Lindsay, always wore his trademark Akubra hat turned down at the front. After the success of The Pub, Slim released two follow-up songs: “Sequel to the Pub with No Beer” and “Answer to the Pub with No Beer”. Slim never went anywhere without his Akubra; he even wore it to meet Queen Elizabeth II in 1981.