NEW  ZEALAND
FOLK * SONG
By the Dry Cardrona
Jack Winter's Song
lyrics James K Baxter, music James McNeish, Don Toms
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A 1956 poem of Baxter's, modified and sung in his 1958 radio play, "Jack Winter's Dream".
The DRY Cardrona is a symbol of the spritual aridity of his early life, in contrast with the life-giving
springtime snowmelt waters of the WILD Cardrona that nourish the cherry trees along its banks.



 C Oh I can G tell where the C cherries grow,
  Am By the dry Car-G-drona
 C Where I plucked them long a-F-go,
  On a G day when I was so-C-ber
  On a F day when C I was G so-C-ber.
    (Audience repeats the last line of each verse)

 My father wore a parson's coat
  By the dry Cardrona
 He kept a tally of the sheep and the goats,
  And I was never sober.

 My mother sewed her Sunday skirt
  By the dry Cardrona
 They say she died of a broken heart
  'Cause I was never sober. 

 I loved a young miss, and only one
  By the dry Cardrona
 She up and married the banker's son,
  For I was never sober.

 I courted a widow of forty-nine
  By the dry Cardrona
 She owned a stable and a Scheelite mine,
  But I was never sober.

 Oh lay my bones till the judgement crack
  By the wild Cardrona
 A blanket swag upon my back,
  To pillow me drunk or sober.

 All rivers run to the rimless grave
  Even the wild Cardrona,
 But never a one will come my way
  Till I am bone cold sober.

 But I can tell where the cherries grow,
  By the wild Cardrona
 Where I plucked them long ago,
  On a day when I was sober.
 



She owned a stable and a scheelite mine...

Scheelite, calcium tungstate, is an important source of tungsten, a very hard metal. It is named for the discoverer of tungsten, KW Scheele. The veins of scheelite in the Otago mountains also contained gold.

A folk enthusiast in Maine has transcribed a track of this song erroniously as "She owned a stable and a sheep like mine." Another American has queried the meaning of the exhortation to "buy the dry card-roller."



 

 

I first heard 'By The Dry Cardrona' sung on radio 2YA in 1958 as the opening song in Baxter's radio play Jack Winter's Dream.

There were some differences; Heenan's original tune was a little rougher, the cherries were not picked but plucked and he didn't love a young miss but a girl, and in the final verse Jack Winter told of a bent black cherry tree.

However ballad-lovers have been singing it from memory for several decades now, and have molded it into its present form.


 

Jack Winter's Dream is set in the depression of the 1930s. Jack Winter still tramps the now worked-out goldfields he knew in his prime, 50 years before.
NARRATOR: Look and listen. A star falls front the roof of the sky. A wind is beginning in the thick bush of the night. Noise of gently rising wind. It blows in Abelstown. quiet as a miner's ghost, sifting the shingle dust of the street for fool's gold. Under the sailing moon Abelstown is full of the empty dead. But no blood runs, except in the willow veins, and the cold water race that sighs all night like a naked girl under the old moon's eye. Rattle of stones.

What did you hear then? The morepork, with blood on its claw, hooting. A rabbit screeching, with blood on its fur, as the weasel slashes and sucks? Slow footsteps. No: stoat and owl run to their holes. The dead hide under God's hand. A man is climbing the hill of the night, out of dry Abelstown. Voice singing.
I can tell where cherries grow,
      By the dry Cardrona
 Where I plucked them long ago,
       On a day when I was sober

 My father wore a parson's coat
       By the dry Cardrona
 He kept a tally of the sheep and the goats,
       And I was never sober.

 My mother sewed her Sunday skirt
       By the dry Cardrona
 They said she died of a broken heart
       For I was never sober.

 Oh lay my bones till the judgement crack
       By the wild Cardrona!
 The blanket swag upon my back
       Will pillow me drunk or sober. 

 I loved a girl, and only one
       By the dry Cardrona
 But she up and married the banker's son,
       For I was never sober.

 I courted a widow of forty-nine
       By the dry Cardrona
 She owned a stable and a Scheelite mine,
       But I was never sober.

 All rivers run to the rimless grave
       Even the wild Cardrona,
 But the black cherry bent my way
       One day when I was sober.
 
NARRATOR: Who is singing on the night road when only the scared owls can hear him? It is Jack Winter. rabbiter, swagman and station rouseabout. Sixty-eight convictions for being happy in a public place. Jailed under the Dog Act he must wear a terrier's collar till the day Death takes it off. Twin brother to the Ephesian sleepers, he has forgotten the world of manhours and ordered mischief, wishes, agonies, hot love and cold pillows, plaster gnomes and paper doilies, for a lifelong dream in which he is winter walking Adam, and the green, gay, river-voiced, bush-thighed and mountain-breasted earth his care and his sole kingdom.

One bitter night, as Jack Winter sleeps in the ruins of the Drover's Rest, a derelict inn, scenes from the goldrush days come back to life and he has a final dream of gold and murder.

Charley Bird, the sly and greedy inn-keeper, is entertaining the ruffian Ballarat Jack and the ineffectual Preaching Lowrie.

A callow miner Young Trevelyan arrives with gold from the diggings. He is welcomed, fed, and entertained. He loses his heart to Charlie's seductive daughter Jenny ...and then he loses his gold and his life to Charlie's cut-throat razor.

Jack Winter watches it all, weeps for Young Trevelyan and then dies in his sleep. Years later a cherry tree grows up in the ruins of the inn where he and Young Trevelyan died.

Jack Winter's Dream was filmed in 1979. You can watch it here.


James Keir Baxter 1926 - 1972


HEMI
portrait in bronze by Joan Morrell.
For more details, click HERE.
New Zealand's best known poet. He was born in Dunedin, to a father who was an objector to the first world war, and a mother who was interested in languages.

He began to write at the age of seven, and spent two years in Britain before returning home during the second world war. After the war he enrolled at Otago University, but quit a short time after.

In 1950 he joined Alcoholics Anonymous and in the mid 1950s he converted to Catholicism.

These facets of his life are reflected in his play, Jack Winter's Dream. "There is one notion that lies behind this play," he said. "The shedding of blood christens a place...the natural world shares in our guilt, our agony, and perhaps our redemption."

In 1966 he devoted his life to the drug addicts and alcoholics of Wellington and Auckland. In 1969 he established a commune at Jerusalem, up the Whanganui River, and three years later he was buried there, to be remembered worldwide for his poetry, and in New Zealand for his support of outcasts from society.

 

The Ballad Writers' Toolbox

Little Man

Other NZ poets have written ballad-type verse that would make great sung ballads with a little simplification. Like Sam Hunt's lines about running over a possum on the road "Little man, I never meant you any harm"

What can you do with this or another of Hunt's ?

Mail me with your effort.


Dry Cardrona on Record

1958 NZBC Jack Winter's Dream studio tape
1978 Jack Winter's dream, a New Zealand drama, LP (copied from 1958 tape)
1982 Ed Trickett People Like You, LP
1983 Martin Curtis Gin & Raspberry, LP

1985 Arthur Toms, cassette
1993 Gavin Asher Across the Line, cassette

1993 Mike Harding Songs of Local Folk, cassette
1993 Fear of Drinking (Canadian Group)
1998 Mike Harding Past to the Present, CD


"Landfall" 1956

"Jack Winter's Dream"
1958
"Shanties by the Way" 1967 Gordon Bok, Maine c.1975 Phil Garland 1983
I can tell where the cherries grow
By the dry Cardrona
Where I plucked them long ago
On a day when I was sober
I can tell where the cherries grow
By the dry Cardrona
Where I plucked them long ago
On a day when I was sober

I can tell where cherries grow
By the dry Cardrona
Where I plucked them long ago
On a day when I was sober

Oh, I have seen the cherries bloom
By the dry Cardrona,
Where I plucked them long ago
On a day when I was sober,
Oh I can tell where cherries grow,
By the dry Cardrona
Where I picked them long ago
On a day when I was sober
My father wore a parson's coat
By the dry Cardrona
He kept a tally of the sheep and the goats
And I was never sober
My father wore a parson's coat
By the dry Cardrona
He kept a tally of the sheep and the goats
And I was never sober
My father wore a parson's coat
By the dry Cardrona
He kept a tally of the sheep and goats
And I was never sober
My father he wore a parson's coat,
By the dry Cardrona,
He kept a tally of the sheep and the goat,
But I was never sober.
My father wore a parson's coat
By the dry Cardrona
He kept a tally of the sheep and the goats,
And I was never sober.
My mother sewed her Sunday skirt
By the dry Cardrona,
They said she died of a broken heart
For I was never sober.
My mother sewed her Sunday skirt
By the dry Cardrona
They said she died of a broken heart
For I was never sober
My mother sewed her Sunday skirt
By the dry Cardrona
They said she died of a broken heart
'Cause I was never sober

My mother she sewed her Sunday skirts,
By the dry Cardrona,
They say she died of a broken heart,
For I was never sober..
My mother sewed her Sunday skirt
By the dry Cardrona
They
sayshe died of a broken heart
For I was never sober.
Oh lay my bones till the judgement crack
By the wild Cardrona!
The blanket swag upon my back,
Will pillow me drunk or sober.
O lay my bones till the judgement crack
By the wild Cardrona!
The blanket swag upon my back
Will pillow me drunk or sober
O lay my bones to the judgement crack
By the wild Cardrona
A blanket swag upon my back
Will pillow me drunk or sober




I loved a girl and only one
By the dry Cardrona
She up and married the banker's son,
For I was never sober.
I loved a girl and only one
By the dry Cardrona
She up and married the banker's son
For I was never sober
I loved a young miss and only one
By the dry Cardrona
But she up and married the banker's son
For I was never sober

And I loved a maiden, but only one,
By the dry Cardrona.
She up and married a banker's son,
For I was never sober.
I loved a maid, and only one
By the dry Cardrona
But she up and married the banker's son,
For I was never sober.
I courted a widow of forty-nine
By the dry Cardrona,
She owned a stable and scheelite mine
But I was never sober.
I courted a widow of forty-nine
By the dry Cardrona
She owned a stable and a sheelite mine
But I was never sober
I courted a widow of forty-nine
By the dry Cardrona
She owned a stable and a scheelite mine
But I was never sober

So I married a widow of forty-nine,
By the dry Cardrona,
She
owned a stable and scheelite mine,
But I was never sober.
I married a widow of forty-nine
By the dry Cardrona
She owned a stable and a scheelite mine,
But I was never sober.










Oh, bury my bones till the judgement crack,
By the dry Cardrona,
A blanket swag upon my back
To pillow me, drunk or sober.
Oh lay my bones till the judgement crack
By the dry Cardrona
A blanket swag upon my back,
To pillow me drunk or sober.
All rivers run to the rimless grave
Even the wild Cardrona,
And never a one will look my way
When I am bone cold sober.
All rivers run to a rimless grave
Even the wild Cardrona
All rivers run to the rimless grave
Even the dry Cardrona
But ne'er a one will turn my way
Till I am bone-cold sober

Oh, the rivers run to a rimless grave,
Even the dry Cardrona,
But nary a one will turn my way
Till I am bone-cold sober.
All rivers run to the rimless grave
Even the dry Cardrona,
But never a one will come my way
Till I am bone cold sober.
But I have seen the cherries grow
By the wild Cardrona,
Where I plucked them long ago
One day when I was sober.


But the black cherry bent my way
One day when I was sober
.
But I have seen the cherries grow
By the dry Cardrona
Where I plucked them long ago
On a day when I was sober
And I have seen the cherries bloom
By the dry Cardrona,
Where I plucked them long ago
On a day when I was sober
But I can tell where the cherries grow,
By the
dry Cardrona
Where I plucked them long ago,
On a day when I was sober.


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Revised November 2017