Ode to Sir Hugh

Sir Hugh the Little got transferred to Newman, a desert pit somewhere beyond the back of North West Nowhere, Western Australia, for a year. I composed this, to the tune of Eric Idle’s The Galaxy Song from The Meaning Of Life, for his farewell party.

[1997?]

Just remember that you’re moving to a village that’s expanding
And demanding population from the east,
That was barely just a pimple on creation when the nation
Was born, two hundred years ago at least.
The town, and all its men, a goat, three goldfish and a hen
Will not support the kind of life you prized,
So what you’ll have to do, if you’re to make it through the year,
Is to get to work and make it civilised!

The exports of the town are aborigines and dirt;
And the population’s listed as “asleep”.
The only time some news occurred was 1843,
When the barber’s son got married to a sheep.
There’s twenty seven pubs, a produce shop and public loos,
But Maccas hasn’t bothered moving in,
And it’s just three hundred miles from Indonesia in the north,
So be sure you don’t commit a Muslim sin!

The little town itself keeps on expanding and expanding
With all the city-slickers it can trap
As fast as it can grow, so it won’t be long you know,
Before it’s big as Sydney, but the night life will be crap.
So remember, when you’re feeling very distant and remote,
All the megabucks your salary is worth:
And if there’s no intelligent life up there where you live,
You can fly on down and buy up most of Perth!