The sun burns through the iron roof and the floor cuts through your knees
It breaks your back and spirit harvesting the fleece
Your swollen wrists are taking strain from working Sheffield shears
Chalking up the numbers and dreaming of the beers

In shearers camps down muddy tracks they lived both poor and rough
The union set conditions shrugged off as a bluff
The raddling in the sheds is rife the tallies are all wrong
The bosses here are bastards now there's scabs down at Brookong

So on a Riverina morning to a sweet Flame Robin song
They raised their hands in anger and put a black ban on Brookong

The unionising shearers came down on all the scabs
Held siege at Brookong Shearing Shed till it all turned to bad
The fighting and the riots lasted all day long
The coppers led away ten martyrs from Brookong

Two years of time in Goulbourn gaol hard labour to his like
Befell poor William Jackson and his brothers of the strife
You can whip us you can jail us but it won't be lasting long
A change is surely coming you can hear it in the songs

So on a Riverina morning to a sweet Flame Robin song
They raised their hands in anger and put a black ban on Brookong

On a Riverina morning to a sweet Flame Robin song
They raised their hands in anger and put a black ban on Brookong