His great-grandfather was a missionary man
And his grandpa was an old prospector
His daddy was a farmer and he went bust
At the hands of a debt collector

He was raised on a ranch by a dried-up river
He was wiry as a wag-'n-bietjie thorn
And they gave him a name and the name just stuck
Right from the day he was born

Ridgeback, Ridgeback
One of those wild kind of men
But if you look him straight in the eye
You'll see the mark of a friend

His great-grandmother was a Heugenot's wife
And his granny was a Dutch school teacher
His mother was a daughter in a family of twelve
But his father was a reborn preacher

And mixed in his blood from his predecessors
Was a-many kinds of qualities of man
And the end result was a special breed
Carved in the shape of the land

Ridgeback, Ridgeback
One of those wild kind of men
But if you look him straight in the eye
You'll see the mark of a friend

Now the missionary in him took him all around the world
But the farmer brought him back to settle
And the prospector took him on down the mine
In the search for the precious metal

And the Heugenot showed him the wine of lovin'
And the school teacher taught him how to drink
And the way that he spoke his words of love
Were not like a poet would think

Ridgeback, Ridgeback
One of those wild kind of men
But if you look him straight in the eye
You'll see the mark of a friend

You can see him on a Sunday when he goes to church
All dressed in his best and prayin'
You can see him in the bar or in the park
As he watches his children playin'

You can see him in the fields of tall tobacco
You can talk to him man to man
You can see him dressed in jungle green
With a rifle in his hand

Ridgeback, Ridgeback
One of those wild kind of men
But if you look him straight in the eye
You'll see the mark of a friend

Ridgeback, Ridgeback
One of those wild kind of men
But if you look him straight in the eye
You'll see the mark of a friend