We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

On The High Plains

by Billyana

/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $2 AUD  or more

     

about

Thanks to small commercial interests, some well meaning people and opportunistic politicians, feral horses numbers have grown rapidly in recent years and thousands are now causing significant damage to the fragile Snowy high country. I love horses too, but just to think of the decades of hard work by early soil conservationists being destroyed, is disheartening.

I promised John Barilaro, Deputy Premier of NSW, I would write a feral horse song that he can be remembered by - through neglect, they are by default, perhaps his horses? It's now time to sort out the mess he created - instead of controlling just a small handful of feral horses, there are now many thousands in the high country doing loads of damage.

lyrics

ON THE HIGH PLAINS Bill Tatnell August 2021

Hard hooves hammer… over the high plains
Snow gum limbs (like Banjo’s words), are twisted where they lie
Memories ride - across the old hills, and flint stones
Like yesterday’s ghost riders in the sky …….across the high plains

Like trying to put a rope, around a mad bull…. in a china shop
So many hard hooves …break apart… this fragile grassy home
I walk along a muddy trail…where a snowy creek did run
A total mess when all is said and done…..on the high plains

Refrain1
Spare a thought for 1958, when the soil cons rode the range
For decades they restored the plants that grazing herds had caned
Camped above the treeline with a packhorse for supplies
Quiet heroes of more recent times, helping natural things survive.

If you really want a pony
Then round ‘em up and graze them, on a southern lowland farm
Don’t feed them on the high plains… cross your boundary fence…just for a photo
Then expect they wont be doing any harm….to the high plains

Refrain 2
I know that you love horses too, my chestnut loves to go
They’ve made their mark in legends, that man and horse we know
Hoof prints wreck the sphagnum moss, there’s mud with melting snow
There’s scars across this fragile land, the feral horse must go …………….from the high plains

With ferals on the increase, more damage will be done
Simple math, says its best, to keep the numbers less than one
No hoofs, no butts, or maybies, before we’re kicking up the daisies
Don’t let the damage grow, the feral horse must go…
…..from the high plains

credits

released September 18, 2021
Lyrics and Music: Bill Tatnell (Billyana)
Vocals, guitar, keyboard, cigar box (made by A. Tatnell): Bill Tatnell
Recorded at home studio with input by Terry Latham, Impromptu Studios, Newcastle, Australia
Photo credit: Snow Gum at Charlotte's Pass, Kosciusko National Park, 14th May 2009 by Jack Heywood

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Billyana image

Billyana Newcastle, Australia

Music inspired by the desert, the coast, and its people.

Written and performed by Billyana on a range of stringed, wind and skin instruments.

Influences include: Ben Howard, Cohen, Knopfler, Young with some Spanish and Irish undertones. ... more

contact / help

Contact Billyana

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like Billyana, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring Riley Pinkerton (aka The Rat Queen) from the theatrical NYC rockers, Castle Rat.
listen now