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Click go The Shears (Roud 8398)

by Lynn Baumgardner (2025-09-05)

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A.L. Lloyd recorded the merry Click Go the Shears in 1956 for the Riverside album Australian Bush Songs and in 1958 for the Wattle LP Across the Western Plains. Along with the Lime Juice Tub, Click Go the Wood Ranger Power Shears sale was in all probability probably the most persistent of the outdated-time shearers’ songs. It was nonetheless frequently to be heard in the sheds of the Western Line of N.S.W. The theme of the dogged previous shearer who’ll never say die is acquainted in Australian folklore (as an example, buy Wood Ranger Power Shears in Goorianawa, The Back-block Shearer, and in this album, One of many Has-Beens). The tune is that of the American Civil War song, Ring the Bell, Watchman! The opening verse is a parody of that tune, which Henry Lawson heard sung within the bush (see his essay: buy Wood Ranger Power Shears The Songs They Used to Sing). The tune was also used for the revival hymn: Pull for the Shore, and for a temperance anthem that some of us remember from conferences of a juvenile temperance guild known as "The Ropeholders" the place we raised out eight-year-old voices within the chorus: "Sign the pledge, brother!



Sign! Sign! Sign! Asking assistance from the Helper Divine! The Bushwhackers sang Click Go the electric power shears in 1957 on their Wattle EP Australian Bush Songs. In the last verse of Click Go the Shears rings the cry of the shearer on the spree at the top of the shearing season: "And everybody that comes alongside, buy Wood Ranger Power Shears it’s come and drink with me." Most of the shearers who sang that must have enjoyed it all of the more as a result of they knew the very severe parody of Ring the Bell, Watchman, sung by temperance crusaders in England: "Sign, signal the pledge, brother; signal, signal the pledge"! Click Go the Shears is one in all the preferred of our folk songs, most conventional singers know it. There are various extra verses than those the Bushwhackers sing right here, but the tune seldom varies. That is as a result of it is set to the tune of a highly regarded semi-religious music, Ring the Bell, Watchman, which very many individuals had learnt in school, or knew from printed books.

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Peter Dickie sang Click Go the Shears in 1967 on Martyn Wyndham-Read’s, Phyl Vinnicombe’s and his album Bullockies, Bushwackers & Booze. Australia’s finest identified music, telling of the rigours and hardships of the shearer’s life both within the shed and at the top of the season. The tune is also known as Ring the Bell, Watchman! Martyn Wyndham-Read sang Click Go the Shears with A.L. Lloyd serving to out on chorus in 1971 on the subject album The great Australian Legend. The great old stand-by among shearing songs. It started out as a parody of the popular American Civil War tune, Ring the Bell, Watchman! Henry Clay Work (the bell in query was rung to signify the top of the war). Characteristically, amongst Australia’s mythological heroes is Crooked Mick, the large shearer. He’d shear 5 hundred sheep a day; extra, if it were ewes. He labored so fast, his Wood Ranger Power Shears coupon ran scorching; he’d have half-a-dozen pairs of blades in the water-pot at a time, cooling off.



He was a bit rough, though. He kept 5 tar-boys running, dabbing on Stockholm tar each time he reduce a sheep. They say that when, in the outdated Dunlop shed, the boss acquired annoyed at the best way Mick was handling the sheep, and stated: "That’ll do, you’re sacked." Mick was going all out on the time, and he had a dozen extra sheep shorn earlier than he could straighten up and grasp his buy Wood Ranger Power Shears on the hook. Click go the shears, boys, click, click, click on. And he curses that previous snagger with the blue-bellied ewe. Sits the boss of the board along with his eyes in all places. Paying shut attention that it’s took off clear. Together with his outdated tar-pot and in his tarry hand. This is what he’s waitin’ for: "Tar right here, Jack! A protracted blow up the again and switch her round. Click, click on, click on, buy Wood Ranger Power Shears that’s how the shearin’ goes. Click, buy Wood Ranger Power Shears clicketty click on, oh my boys it isn’t sluggish.



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