🎸 Sweeny chords by Slim Dusty

Verse 1:
      D               A
  It was somewhere in September and the sun was goin' down,
                      A7      D
  when I came in search of coffee, to a Darling River town.
                         A
   Come-And-Have-A-Drink we'll call it, 'tis a fitting name I think,
                      A7       D
  and 'twas raining, for a wonder, up at Come-And-Have-A-Drink.

    G                      D
  Underneath the pub verandah I was resting on a bunk,
      E                     A   - A7
  when a stranger rose before me, and he said that he was drunk.
    D                 A
  He apologised for speaking, there was no offence, he swore,
                       A7      D
  but he somehow seemed to fancy that he'd seen my face before.

Verse 2:
    D                A
  He agreed you can't remember all the chaps you chance to meet,
                       A7       D
  and he said his name was Sweeney, people lived in Sussex Street.
                    A
  He was camping in a stable, that he swore that he was right,
                    A7      D
  only for the blanky horses walkin' over him all night.
     G                          D
  He'd apparently been fighting, for his face was black and blue,
      E                        A - A7
  and it looked as though the horses had been treading on him too.
       D             A
  But an honest genial twinkle in the eye that wasn't hurt
                         A7         D
  seemed to hint of something better, spite of drink and rags and dirt.


Verse 3:
      D                  A
  He was born in Parramatta and he said with humour grim,
                       A7       D
  that he'd like to see the city, 'ere the liquor finished him.
                      A
  But he couldn't raise the money, he was damned if he could think,
                      A7      D
  what the government was doing here, he offered me a drink.


Verse 4:
    D                 A
  I declined, 'twas self-denial, and I lectured him on booze,
                      A7       D
  using all the hackneyed arguments that preachers mostly use.
                          A
  Things I'd heard in temperance lectures, I was young and rather green,
                  A7        D
  and I ended by referring to the man he might have been.
      G                        D
  But he couldn't stay to argue, for his beer was nearly gone,
      E                        A   - A7
  he was glad, he said, to meet me, and he'd see me later on.
      D                  A
  But he guessed he'd have to go and get his bottle filled again,
                      A7        D
  and he gave a lurch and vanished in the darkness and the rain.
      D               A
  And of afternoons in cities, when the rain is on the land,
                      A7      D   G  D
  visions come to me of Sweeney with his bottle in his hand.