By the time you read this letter
I'll be far away from here
I've left to find my fortune
outside of the weir
the world is not this island
to dig and die for gold
and how can I stay here
with australia full of gold

father won't forgive me
so mother don't you cry
for one day I'll return
with my head held high
for now keep that book
its words pulled my bowstring
and when I read them
for me changed everything

words on a page can weigh a ton
when the past is not undone

I stowed away on a ship
that sailed the western sea
city to the outback
was all I'd read it'd be
the war broke out in '41
I joined like every other son
and came back from rabaul
with my life and an empty gun

when I came back to canada
there were voices in my head
they spoke not with words
but with the faces of the dead
the strongest river current
can change its flow by force
but words brought me to the war
and changed my path and course

now as an old man
I think of all the things I've done
'cause I've lived my whole life
like a bullet from a gun
I look back at myself
and when I was 21
and when I'd read that book
of foreign lands and all or none
I wonder if my heirs
will think of what I've done
and if the sins of the father
will visit the son