Tom Waits - Town With No Cheer Lyrics

Well it's hotter 'n blazes and all the long faces
There'll be no oasis for a dry local grazier
There'll be no refreshment for a thirsty jackaroo
From Melbourne to Adelaide on the overlander
With newfangled buffet cars and faster locomotives
The train stopped in Serviceton less and less often

No, there's nothing sadder than a town with no cheer
Vic Rail decided the canteen was no longer necessary there
No spirits, no bilgewater and eighty dry locals
And the high noon sun beats a hundred and four
There's a hummingbird trapped in a closed-down shoe store

This tiny Victorian rhubarb
Kept the watering hole open for sixty-five years
Now it's boilin' in a miserable March twenty-first
Wrapped the hills in the blanket of Patterson's curse
The train smokes down the xylophone, there'll be no stopping here
All you can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer

No Bourbon, no Branchwater, though the townspeople here
Fought her Vic Rail decree tooth and nail
Now it's boilin' in a miserable March twenty-first
Wrapped the hills in a blanket of Patterson's curse
The train smokes down the xylophone, there'll be no stopping here
All ya can be is thirsty in a town with no cheer