[Verse 1]
Stinking wool town
Rotgut rum
Cards on a cracked pub floor
Flash of a Flintlock
Teeth in the mud
Blood on the trooper's coat
Ticket of leave
Chain on the ankle
Ironbark claws the sky
Swag on the shoulder
Hand on the pistol
"Come take us back
Just try"
[Chorus]
BUSHRANGER
EARTH AND ASH
(teeth spit lead, we crash)
Steel in our hands
No master
No god
BUSHRANGER
BLACK GUM SCRATCH
Tracks run red through the frosted gorse
Ride or hang from the gallows branch
[Verse 2]
Dray road ambush
Smoke in the ferns
Horses scream in the dark
Mail coach burning
Gold dust coughing
Priest with a slit throat mark
Wanted bills peel
Rain-soaked bark
Names nailed into a tree
McPherson
Howe
Bold Jack
Thunderbolt
Dead men learning to breathe
[Chorus]
BUSHRANGER
EARTH AND ASH
(black soil in our gash)
Steel in our hands
No master
No god
BUSHRANGER
BLACK GUM SCRATCH
Tracks run red through the frosted gorse
Ride or hang from the gallows branch
[Bridge]
[Beat drops to grinding half-time
Guitars chug on a single dissonant chord]
Hoods up
Faces wrapped
Sworn on a broken cross (hey!)
Fire-lit eyes in a bark hut room
Drinking to every loss
No crown
No flag
Just hunger and rage
Crows on the cellblock roof
Ropes swing slow
As the crowd throws stones
Bush wind howls the proof
[Chorus]
BUSHRANGER
EARTH AND ASH
(last breath, sharp as a lash)
Steel in our hands
No master
No god
BUSHRANGER
BLACK GUM SCRATCH
Tracks run red through the frosted gorse
Ride or hang from the gallows branch