The Ballad of Uncle Doug
Not On Label · Australia
- Artist
- Unknown Artist
- Title
- The Ballad of Uncle Doug
- Release
- Unreleased
- Label
- Not On Label
- Format
- Unreleased · Unreleased
- Language
- English
- Country
- Australia
- Genre
- Folk · Contemporary Folk
- Primary theme
- Peace, Protest & Anti-War
Lyrics
English: You have seen him on the telly every week on 'World of Sport' / You've endured his boorish manner and the way that he'll cavort / Though he seems an oafish halfwit, I confess that he's no mug / He's a Labor opportunist and they call him 'Uncle Doug' / And he's not content with one job, he holds six or even more / Yet he claims that he's a battler for the underprivileged poor / 'I'm a battler', he professes and it makes my heartstrings tug / Till I realise he battles for a cause called 'Uncle Doug' / He's a bosses' politician and it really gets my goat / For he's in the Labor Party so he gets the workers' vote / Yet it's working folk and students who campaign against the war / Who set out to smash conscription and resist an unjust law / But he'll never join the protests with the likes of you and me / He's too busy flogging products for his bosses on TV / But we can't avoid the issue and dismiss it with a shrug / For the Labor Party's riddled with the likes of 'Uncle Doug' / And their parliamentary antics are designed to fool the mob / So if you want socialism then we've got to do the job / You can keep your witless Whitlam and Clyde Holding and Mick Young / As for me I'll stick with Lenin and Karl Marx and Mao Tse-tung
Notes
Anonymous song popular at Melbourne demonstrations, about the sports commentator and Labor politician Doug Elliott; tune "Lazy Harry's". Printed in Ratbags & Rabblerousers.
Themes
Anti-War · Draft · Satire · Anti-Politician · Demonstration
From the release Unreleased
In collections
Australian & New Zealand Songs · Draft Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]