Red Gum – Spark Of The Heart lyrics

It's a harsh dry land, breaks your back and scars and gnarls your hands
Now carcasses rot in the sun and dusk silts up the dams
Sacked two men when the postie poked those bluies through the fly screen door
The welfare state dried up ten years before

Its Hobson's choice, they run this plane flocks melt into bone
You can drove the stock routes for a year and cripple life at home
Still look forward to every day but every days the same
You Wake in a sweat dream of the smell of rain

But a river runs solid runs deep
I work this land it grips me by my feet
Staying until my blood runs cold
Spark of the heart
I'm in soul

My great grandfather pushed his luck beyond the Goutre Line
Now all that's left are new cloud shears and a gravestone walked with lime
In tribute I still use his Swiss barometer in vain
Lake be damned, the weather hasn't changed

Fifty miles by river land this pasture fenced and sprayed
Profit margins [chime] and graphed at boardrooms in LA
Absenting landlords meet to match their smiles and fake suntans
In three years they'll have bleached the soil to sand

But a river runs solid runs deep
I work this land it grips me by my feet
Staying until my blood runs cold
Spark of the heart
I'm in soul

Jocie searches salt bush where rain once ran its course
It's a shock to see a child of twelve grow old upon a horse
The glory box lies locked with memories silent as the phone
Even in the shadows it's our home
Government relief just might keep breeding stock alive
The agents jump the cost of feed and the export markets dive
And if it rains I'm still in debt until I'm ninety-eight
Will the last one out please shut the bloody gate

On the news it seems unreal
Floods in Cairns the cities just can't feel
Survivals a story untold
Spark of the heart
I'm in soul

But a river runs solid runs deep I love this land it grips me by my feet
Staying until my blood runs cold
Spark of the heart
I'm in soul