NEW  ZEALAND
FOLK * SONG 		All My Love Is Gone
Mike Moroney 2016

Home - Kiwi songs - Maori songs

In the past ten years, nearly 200 New Zealand farmers have taken their own lives.




G She took her dogs out one last time
DFor a run down by the scheelite mine
G Stood and rolled a cigarette
D Tried to remember, tried to for-G-get

C All D my C love D is G gone
C All D my C love D is G gone

No more point in making hay
Snce she sent the stock away
She lifted up her hunting gun
She shot her farm dogs one by one

All my love is gone
All my love is gone

Been a struggle since the old man died
He'd always been there by her side
Remembered well his parting words
This farming lark is for the birds

All my love is gone
All my love is gone

Since they put the sign up on the gate
This place became so much real estate
From the ridge up to the timber line
Down to the river and the scheelite mine

All my love is gone
All my love is gone

True love is knowing when you're done
She lifted up her hunting gun....


Farmer Suicides

Almost 200 New Zealand farmers committed suicide between 2006 and 2015, and the numbers increased when farm prices dropped in 2015, from 18 in 2013, to 26 in 2015.

If a farm is just treated as a business, and becomes unprofitable, the farmer can sell up and find a job in the city, or working on another person's farm. But most farms are more than a business: they are the love of the farmer's life.

Farmers know and care for every acre of the land, making it more beautiful and bountiful as a treasure to be handed on to the next generation. So when the cost of rates, fertilizer, workers' wages, diesel, food, new machinery, vet services and new stock exceeds the income from the sale of stock, crops or milk, and they cannot continue to farm, then they have nothing more to give their love to, fall into depression and often commit suicide.

Suicide Crisis Helpline (open 24/7) - 0508 828 86 is a service for people who may be thinking about suicide, or for those who are concerned about family or friends.

Mike Moroney

Mike Moroney is a Dunedin musician (Vocals/Guitar/Mandolin/Mandola) and songwriter who has played and recorded with many artists and bands including Marcus Turner, Chris Penman, Lindsey Shields, Anna Bowen, The Chaps, Gazebo Tiger and the long-running but now defunct Pog Band.

He has done much to support Dunedin's New Edinborough Folk Club, the Whare Flat Folk Festival, and the NZ-Folk e-mail discussion group.

"All My Love is Gone" on record

2916, Long Ride Home, Catgut and Steel, CD and Spotify

Webpage put onto folksong.org.nz website November 2016, edited April 2019