Sixteen Straws Lyrics - Singles - The Drones

One Sunday morning 

While I was out walking 

By the Brisbane's waters 

I chanced to stray 

There I found a prisoner 

Layed half in the water 

He'd seen me coming 

And he began to say 

"I was a native of Erin's Ireland 

And before I was brought 

To this terrible place 

They dragged me away 

From my wife and newborn 

And my ailing parents 

I've been a prisoner at Port Macquarie 

Norfolk Island and Emu Plains 

At Castle Hill and cursed Toongabbie 

At all of these settlements 

I've worked in chains 

But of all the places of condemnation 

At each penal station of New South Wales 

To Moreton Bay I've found no equal 

The tyranny there makes all the rest pale 

There I met O'Brien 

The defender from Ulster 

He'd left Ireland burning 

Came here for the wake 

He was a schemer 

A Jacobite nightmare 

He could not be broken 

But he became displaced 

The Jew had one hand 

He was a violent man 

He'd worn the 20 pound irons 

Since before time began 

Just before the dawn broke 

His starvation awoke 

He'd pick the corn from the filth 

He'd find laying around 

There ain't no walls at all 

So remote is the North 

The Commandant Logan 

Was the devil for sure 

His chief flogger was mad 

I heard a prison guard say 

He'd wash his lash in a bucket 

Then drinks the remains 

Well I heard a rumour 

In the barracks one night 

The Jew and O'Brien had fashioned a knife 

They meant to kill Logan 

But my will was broke 

My brain reeled with this secret 

And the next day I spoke 

They put me back on the gang 

With no word of my actions 

O'Brien and the Jew 

Got 300 lashes 

O'Brien came off his triangle 

With exposed shoulder blades 

His skin never healed 

He turned morbid and strange 

We was out on the road gang 

Just digging a hole 

I was struggling with conscience 

My nerves had dissolved 

To 15 pairs of eyes 

O'Brien proposed, 

'Shall we go to the gallows 

Be done with our woes? 

You know the game 

Fair play's all I'm asking 

We'll draw 16 straws then nothing is wanting 

Why should we grasp at the 

Straws of our lives 

When we're only condemned by our will to survive? ' 

16 straws we did then did draw 

I picked the long one 

The Jew picked the short 

He said 'pray God forgives you 

At least make it quick' 

14 pairs of eyes watched me 

Pounding a a shiv through his heart 

And for a few moments there was no 

Stopping the blood 

Then O'Brien said 'friends! 

On a scaffold this ends 

But it's a long was to Brisbane 

And we are dangerous men' 

Well Logan was wild 

We filled him with bile 

He'd seen the Catholic dodge 

Plain suicide 

We'd ascended his powers 

But not that of the King's 

Or the judge down the river's 

But we was happy to swing 

We were marched through the scrub 

Off to Brisbane for trial 

Chained into a whaler 

Set off at low tide 

With 6 nervous marines 

And 6 Enfield rifles 

The arse end of the world 

And indifferent blue sky 

Well I turned to torpor 

At the stern in the sun 

But I gathered the others must have come undone 

I woke breathing smoke in a chaos of limbs 

A red coat squirting blood 

Through a hole in his chin 

And a volley of fire in my general direction 

There was panic and shot 

And the smell of powder burning 

I threw a rifle up over the side 

It was dark by the water 

But I could see the shore lights 

Crouched down in the back 

The wrong side of the guns 

Getting scorched by the powder 

I thought surely I'm done 

I seen ghoulish things 

Men show limb from limb 

O'Brien was dead 

There were pieces of him 

I tore off my shirt 

I was quite badly burnt 

My eyes poured like well springs 

They were swollen and hurt 

I'm not sure who survived 

My whole trunk was on fire 

But they borke the chains off me 

And I bailed over the side. " 

Well I was amazed by this poor wretch's tale 

I'd heard not of the friends 

He had left in the whaler 

But I'd just seen the paper 

And I had to explain 

How his Commander Logan 

Had died just this day 

"He'd set out behind you 

He was out hunting game 

When he startled some natives 

Took a spear through his brain" 

Then the prisoner said "good" 

I heard someone in boots 

I turned around and that's when 

The Royal Marines came