And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda chords by Nathan Lay

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Verse 1
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Now when I was a young man,
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I carried me pack
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And I lived the free life of the rover
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From the Murray's green basin to
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the dusty outback
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Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over
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Then in 1915, my coun
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try said "son
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It's time you stopped rambling,
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there's work to be done"
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So they gave me a tin hat,
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and they gave me a gun
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And they marched me away to the war

Verse 2
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And the band played Waltzing Matilda
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As the ship pulled away from the quay
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And amidst all the cheers,
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the flag- waving and tears
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We sailed off for Gallipoli
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Verse 3
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And how well I remember
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that terrible day
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How our blood stained the
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sand and the water
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And of how in that hell that they
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called Suvla Bay
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We were butchered like lambs
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at the slaughter
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Johnny Turk, he was waiting,
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he'd primed himself well
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He showered us with bullets
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and he rained us with shell
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And in five minutes flat,
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he'd blown us all to hell
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Nearly blew us right back to Australia

Verse 4
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But the band played Waltzing Matilda
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When we stopped to bury our slain
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We buried ours,
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and the Turks buried theirs
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Then we started all over again
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Verse 5
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And those that were left,
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well we tried to survive
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In that mad world of blood,
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death and fire
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And for ten weary weeks,
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I kept myself alive
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Though around me the
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corpses piled higher
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Then a big Turkish shell
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knocked me arse over head
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And when I woke up in me hospital bed
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And saw what it had done,
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well I wished I was dead
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Never knew there was worse
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things than dyin'

Verse 6
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For I'll go no more waltzing
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Matilda
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All around the green bush far and free
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To hump tent and pegs,
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a man needs both legs
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No more waltzing Matilda for me

Verse 7
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So they gathered the crippled,
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the wounded, the maimed
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And they shipped us
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back home to Australia
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The legless, the armless,
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the blind, the in sane
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Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
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And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
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I looked at the place where
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me legs used to be
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And thanked Christ there was nobody
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waiting for me
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To grieve, to mourn, and to pity

Verse 8
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But the band played Waltzing Matilda
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As they carried us down the gangway
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But nobody cheered,
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they just stood and stared
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Then they turned all their faces away
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Verse 9
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And so now every April, I sit on me porch
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And I watch the parades pass before me
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And I see my old comrades,
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how proudly they march
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Reviving old dreams
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of past glories
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And the old men march slowly,
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old bones stiff and sore
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They're tired old heroes
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from a forgotten war
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And the young people ask,
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"what are they marching for?"
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And I ask myself the same question

Verse 10
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But the band plays Waltzing Matilda
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And the old men still answer the call
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But as year follows year,
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more old men disappear
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Someday no one will
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march there at all

Verse 11
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Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
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Who'll come a- waltzing
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Matilda with me?
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And their ghosts may be heard
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As they march by that
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billabong
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Who'll come a- waltzing Matilda with me?