The Gift Of Years [Polish translation]

1

Well, old friend, here I am,

I told you I'd be back.

And as usual mate, I'm bloody late;

it's 75 years down the track.

And for the last time here I stand

In this familiar foreign land.

Back with the mates I left behind,

Fixed forever in their time.

And of all the ghosts of all the boys

Who haunt this lonely place

Only one of them wears your cheery grin

And your Queensland joker's face

But I drown in old and bloody dreams

Of young mens' helpless dying screams

I feel your hand give my arm a shake

Your voice saying "steady, mate"

The country that you died for, mate,

You would not know it now

The future that we dreamed of, mate,

Got all twisted up somehow

The peace that we were fighting for,

The end to stupid senseless war

So it couldn't happen to our kids

Well old mate, it did.

But thank you for the gift of years

And the flame that brightly burned

For the time you bought

And the lessons taught

'though often wasted and unlearned

"Lest we forget" cry the multitudes,

As if I ever ever could

So forgive an old man's tears,

And thank you for the years.

1. Spoken Introduction: I wrote this song called ‟The Gift Of Years”, and I wrote it to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli, right, 1990.

And, if you remember, back that far there was big commemoration services held by the Turkish and Australian government in Gallipoli at the time. They knew that the veterans wouldn’t see a hundredth anniversary, so they decided to make a big deal out of the seventy fifth. And we sent back some original Gallipoli veterans who were… there still were some alive then, to represent Australia at the commemoration services.

And I was asked to write a song about it. And I came up with this song. It was based on a… a letter that an ex-RWF veteran from World War II sent his… left for his kids after he died. And he said ‟I don’t want you to grieve for me at all. I never expected to survive the war, and I’d like to thank my family and friends and a lot of my comrades who didn’t come back, for the gift of all those years I’ve had.” And as soon as I read that letter, I knew that that was the tack I’d take with the song, that’s why I called it ‟The Gift Of Years”.

• Artist:Eric Bogle