Tom Waits — Town with No Cheer

Well, it's hotter than blazes and all the long faces There'll be no oasis for a dry local grazier There'll be no refreshment for a thirsty jackaroo From Melbourne to Adelaide on the overlander With newfangled buffet cars and faster locomotives The train stopped in Serviceton less and less often There's nothing sadder than a town with no cheer Vic Rail decided the canteen was no longer necessary there No spirits, no bilgewater and eighty dry locals And the high noon sun beats a hundred-and-four There's a hummingbird trapped in a closed-down shoe store This tiny Victorian rhubarb Kept the watering hole open for sixty-five years Now it's boilin' in a miserable March 21st Wrapped the hills in a blanket of Paterson's curse The train smokes down the xylophone There'll be no stopping here All you can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer No Bourbon, no Branchwater Though the townspeople here Fought her Vic Rail decree tooth and nail Now it's boilin' in a miserable March 21st Wrapped the hills in a blanket of Paterson's curse The train smokes down the xylophone There'll be no stopping here All you can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer