Clayton Saunders – The Drover

I’ve wanted to write a song that was a bush ballad highlighting the heritage of our great country for some time now. So I chose to write a song paying tribute to the iconic Australian Drover and their amazing and unique lifestyle. Without the drovers mustering livestock across thousands of miles of rugged outback, where would we be.  

It’s a story song about the highs and lows of the drover’s life and how they traversed this great land of ours battling the elements and terrain to get the job done. The drovers were excellent horsemen and tough characters with a sense of humour which was needed to break up the monotony of those long harsh trips along tracks called ‘The Long Paddock.’ They’d be away for three months maybe more, some of them with wives and children who had to stay behind. The women had to be strong having to take care of the property and children on their own along with all the hardships that it brought. A life most city folk wouldn’t cope with easily. That’s another story in itself as outlined in Henry Lawson’s ‘The Drovers Wife’ and recently released as a motion picture on the silver screen.

During my research in gathering information to write the song, I discovered that despite the rugged and sometimes dangerous lifestyle, these hardy Australian stockmen believed that being a drover was a pleasure that most townsfolk would never know or understand.

I do hope you enjoy my tribute to The Drover.