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Lime Juice Tub

When shearing comes lay down your drums
Step on the board you brand new chums
With a ra-dum ra-dum rub-a-dub-dub
We'll send you home in a lime juice tub

Chorus
So here we are in New South Wales
Shearing sheep as big as whales
With leather necks and daggy tails
And fleece as tough as rusty nails

There's brand new chums and cockies sons
They fancy that they are great guns
They fancy they can shear the wool
But the beggars can only tear and pull

Well, since you crossed the briny deep
You reckon you can shear the sheep
With a ra-dum ra-dum rub-a-dub-dub
We'll send you home in a lime juice tub

And when the sheep with tar are black
Roll up roll up and get the sack
Once more we're away on the Wallaby Track
Once more to look for work out back

We camp in huts without any doors
Sleep upon the dirty floors
With a pannikin of flour and a sheet of bark
To wallop up a damper in the dark

Its home its home I'd like to be
Not humping my drum in this country
It's sixteen thousand miles I've come
To march along with a blanken drum.

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This song has its origins in the late 1800s. Lime Juice Tub was a slang term for a British ship (referring to the practice of using limes to prevent scurvy).

There are many variations of the song with additional lyrics. We are trying to match the lyrics here with what is being sung.

The song is being performed by The Reel Matilda, a very popular and highly accomplished "bush band."

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