An Old Tale of Swan's Ale

An Old Tale of Swan’s Ale

Perth, Western Australia. 1975

Some people get merry on sherry,

And others on whisky it’s true,

But to my way of thinking

The best sort of drinking

Is emptying cans of Swan brew.

You’ve heard of the tales of the west,

Where sheriffs and outlaws were bold,
But in W.A.

There happened one day,

A story that has to be told.

Way back in the frontier days,

When Perth was a very small town,

Then our local lawmen

Were quick on the draw men,

And quick to drink a glass down.

In Perth lived a man of the law,

His name was Albert O’Kier.

He carried no gun,

And bullets had none,

In his holsters he kept cans of beer.

An outlaw there was at that time,

Who feared not a man nor a beast,

He was a bushranger

And robbed every stranger

Who dared travel out to the east.

So Albert was sent out to find him,

And bring him back home to the jail.

As he rode out he sang,

To the sound of the clang

Of a caseful of cans of Swan’s ale.

The bushranger heard the strange sound,

That came to him over the sand,

And he followed his ears

For it sounded like beers,

That were tasty and frozen and canned.

The bushranger went for his gun,

And Albert drew quick for the slaughter,

In a flash in his hands

Were a couple of cans

That made his opponent’s mouth water.

They sat down in the shade of a tree,

And drank till the end of the day,

And the bushranger swore

To rob men no more,

If they gave him some Swan’s on their way.

So this is the end of the tale

Of a West Australian saga,

That tells how our man

Went to fight with a can,

And won a gun-battle with lager.