Verse 1:
When I was just a little picaninny, a lubra told me tales of long ago;
of happiness when this land of the emu was ours.
She told me of the warriors back from hunting with nulla nulla, boomerang and spear.
And gay corrobborees were danced from the dusk till dawn.
Chorus:
This land was ours; before the white man arrived and we shed many a tear since he came here.
This land was ours; but we will love it always
we dream of happier days and wattle flowers.
My mem’ries still call me, ‘come walkabout with me and lay by the billabong cool.’
Lazily watching the kangaroo creeping to drink at the edge of the pool.
My lonely heart finds peace out under a tree.
You’ll never take this from me,
for this land was ours. This land was ours;
Though we learnt sorrow and fear
and the kookaburra will cheer my lonely hours.
This land was ours; the possum, dingo and bear
can still find happiness there and rainbow showers.
The platypus plays in the streams of my childhood,
the mopoke still hoots at a star.
The magpie still warbles his song in the gumtree,
the bunyip still calls from afar.
‘Go walkabout’ my homeland whispers to me
Come out back where you will see this land was ours.
This land was ours.
Amnesiac Archive 