SIX O’CLOCK SWILL

Wipe the shit from your hands, as you trudge from the shed

Spit your fag to the ground, pull some burrs from the back of your head

Flop on a bale with an audible sigh,

Brush off the sweat as it drips from your eyes

Another day’s classing has gone by the by, it’s been done

Pull that “blue flame” from your back, head yourself for a wash,

With an curse and a nod, bid farewell to the boss,

Cos now that the horrors of work have been done,

Before you return to the traumas of home

There’s still a few hours left, that you call your own

Drink to your friends and your comrades, to your little lady at home

Drink to the memory of all the great bastards you’ve known

Drink to your queen and your country, drink and drink again still

Drink till you fall or the publican calls,

Yes drink to your fill, of the six o’clock swill

Wipe the froth from your mouth, head yourself to the bar,

Catch the eye of that barmaid, that you’ve not seen before,

Tell her some stories you’ve told in the past,

Drain out the dregs of another pint glass

It may be your fifth, but it won’t be your last for the day

Drink to your friends and your comrades, to your little lady at home

Drink to the memory of all the great bastards you’ve known

Drink to your queen and your country, drink and drink again still

Drink till you fall or the publican calls,

Yes drink to your fill, of the six o’clock swill

At home there’s a meal on the table, and kids running wild in the hall

You’re stuck with your lot, but you’re willing to wager it all

Cos beleaguered by debt, bedevilled by fog, bewitched by the lure of the foam

Besotted by barmaids, benighted by grog, but be buggered if you’re going home

Drink to your friends and your comrades, to your little lady at home

Drink to the memory of all the great bastards you’ve known

Drink to your queen and your country, drink and drink again still

Drink till you fall or the publican calls,

Yes drink to your fill, of the six o’clock swill

I had initially posted a live version of Six O'Clock Swill performed during an interview with Ross M Fear at Alive FM 90.5 some weeks ago. 

As the "Stripped Bare" CD has now been released digitally, I thought I would upload the studio version. I will leave the song up as available for free download for seven days.

The song takes us back to a time in Sydney, Australia, in the mid to late 1950s when hotels were required to shut at 6pm. Pubs would be packed to the gunnels, as it were, as men would try to cram as many beers into themselves as time would permit before returning home, if they could make it. It was a time christened the "six o'clock swill".

In the 70s, while I was at university, I obtained casual work at a sheepskin/cow hide warehouse. The work was vile and I had in fact thrown up three times before lunch on my first day there. My mates and I, in order to anaethetise ourselves would go to a local pub at lunchtime and down four schooners of beer in quick succession before returning to work. It was our own form of the six o'clock swill and was the catalyst for me writing this song.

This version of the song can be found on the "Stripped Bare" CD under the artist name "Brian Ralston's Self Tort". The CD or the individual songs from the CD can be purchased via iTunes and other digital outlets or you order a hard copy via www.selftort.com

Some older members of mixposure might have heard this song before as it has sort of become a signature tune for me. I even did a completely different version with Gary Carciello and Dr C some years ago now.