Murray Robertson
You're travelling the highway of Southern Australia
across countryside barren and bare
You look all around and there's nothing but nowhere,
think of the towns that were there
Towns where a man with his sweat and his blood
had to carve out a life with his pain
God why did you take it all away, the day the fires came?
There's a dot on the map, it once was a town
though its mentions in history are few
But all that was changed when those Ash Wednesday flames tore the heart out of old Cockatoo
A town that outlasted its share of disasters,
now memories are all that remain
God why did you take it all away, the day the fires came?
As a child I was told there were lambs in the fold
and a God who'd watch over us all
His guiding light would shine on thru the night
and he'd be there whenever we'd fall
But did God hear the pleas of a town on its knees
about to lose all to the flames
I think he just turned his head away, the day the fires came.
One year the drought leaves you choking in dust,
the next year it's floods from the rain
Whatever comes up you just pick yourself up
and the struggle starts over again
But how can you beat the hellish damned heat
that comes from the devil's own flames
Did God just close his eyes that day, the day the fires came?
