Dark Side of Newtown - Backsliders

Piggy Roy was a sugar trader, living on the brink

Couldn’t make enough of it, dealing on King street

It was a hard hard time, near the store that named a town

It was a hard hard time, on the dark side of Newtown

On the dark side of Newtown

Jessie she married Fred in April across from Newtown station

They took the horse-drawn tram right up to the celebration

Together nearly 40 years when Fred he departed

Jessie dressed in widow’s weeds round Newtown thereafter

It was a hard hard time, near the store that named a town

It was a hard hard time, on the bad side of Newtown

On the bad side of Newtown

Tommy died in the infirmary, he was buried by a tree

Near the track of the Eora, in a grave that can’t be seen

There’s paupers in a graveyard, on the city surround

You know poverty is spreading, there’s an epidemic in Newtown

Chop a load 'baker's wood', with a felling axe,

load it on a donkey dray, with a pile of knickknacks

Make a pound note bet at a dishlicker meet

Watch the coat-tugger lose if its a dead-heat

It was a hard hard time, near the store that named a town

It was a hard hard time, on the bad side of Newtown

On the bad side of Newtown

On the bad side of Newtown