Redgum - Gladstone Pier video free download

Redgum's fifth album, Frontline, was released in August 1984.

By 1984, the Redgum line-up comprised Schumann, Truman, Atkinson, McDonald, Stephen Cooney (bass,didgeridoo, mandolin, banjo), Michael Spicer (piano) and Brian Czempinski (drums).

Lyrics

Peter was a sailor,

Swarthy, lean and proud.

He could take schooner through

A big sea swell,

Aloof in the mainland crowd.

She loved his quiet laughter,

Like a boy he'd shrug and grin,

The beach stretched wide at Port MacKay,

With dreams upon the wind.

He wore her name in a rose tattoo,

Long weekends of gins and lime.

She lived in Cairns,

Made plans to move,

Check-out girl part-time

And rumour said there's a boom ahead.

You can make your future here,

By the Gladstone pier.

A two-room fibro shelter,

Empty hopes, the damp, the flies.

Prices hiked, her face grew tight

And conversation died.

And the foreman at the smelter said

"You're much too old,

Try the canefields further north"

And the clerk at the market said

"We don't buy trouble.

There's a strike down at the port."

Then a six day shift in a filthy pit,

The draglines gouging coal,

The black dust gnaws at your lungs and pores.

The anger rots your soul.

And the queue round the block waits for you to drop,

Can you take it for another year.

By the Gladstone pier.

Every Sunday he'd walk alone,

Casting pebbles at the passing waves.

Plunge in brine, cleanse his pride,

And the stronger man remains.

The crunch of shales and distant sails

Ached within his bones,

Seeing ships upon the tide.

Bound for ports unknown.

Soon he drank for comfort.

She grew bitter in the weeks between

The nights of beer and hollow cheer,

When love became routine.

They fought, she left him crying.

Angry words in a last café.

Desperation on a lonely night,

She took the bus to Cairns next day.

Gladstone couples break that way,

Mutual blame and no regrets.

Boomtown blues just fate to grey,

And all that's left are debts.

He cried

"I have to leave this dirty old town

and the rattle of broken men,

Break these chains, wash the pain,

And out to sea again.

I drained all my passion, my anger and my fear,

And sank them in a flagon

Under Gladstone pier."

She saw him through Greyhound window,

As the dawn glowed on the chrome.

Waiting by the pier under sullen skies,

The sea winds calling home.

From Surfers up to Townsville,

Past the high-rise colonies.

Fast food, cheap motels, and two more

Boomtown refugees