Gladstone Pier Songtext / Lyric

Peter was a sailor

Swarthy lean and proud

He could take a schooner through a big sea swell

Aloof in the mainland crowd



She loved his quiet laughter

Like a boy he'd shrug and grin

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

Checkout girl part-time

And rumour said there's a boom ahead

You can make your future here

By the Gladstone pier



A two roomed five row shelter

Empty hopes, the damp, the flies

Prices hyped her face grew tight

And conversation died






And the foreman at the smelter said you're much too old

Try the cane fields 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 drag lines gouging coal

The black dust gnaws at your lungs and pores

And 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

A stronger man remains



The crunch of shale 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 cafe

In desperation on a lonely night

She took the bus to Cairns next day



And Gladstone couples break that way

Mutual blame and no regrets

And boomtown blues just fade to grey

And all that's left are debts



He cried:

"I've got to leave this dirty old town

and the rattle of broken men

Break these chains and wash the pain

And put to sea again

Drained all my passion my anger and my fears

And sank them in a flagon

under Gladstone pier"



She saw him through the Greyhound window

As the dawn glowed on the chrome

Standing by the pier under sullen skies

Sea winds calling home



From Surfers up to Townsville

Past the high-rise colonies

Fast food, cheap hotels

And two more boomtown refugees