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And When They Dance

[Roy Abbott]

Roy Abbott of Mucky Duck Bush Band wrote And When They Dance. They sang in on their 2004 album Mucky Duck Bush Band 1974-2004: Three Ducking Decades.

Danny Spooner sang And When They Dance on his 2007 CD of fairly contemporary Australian songs, Emerging Tradition. He also sang it live in June 2007 in concerts with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. A recording of these concerts was released in 2017 on his download album Enchanted: Live in Concert. He noted on his original album:

Anyone who has experienced a real bush dance will appreciate this song. Roy Abbott wrote it some ten years ago and I really enjoy singing it. I worked briefly on a station near Junee in NSW in the 1960s and remember the end of shearing dance. Tables groaned with food and drink and the dancers exhibited some pretty fancy footwork but it was the lasses who had the staying power.

Lyrics

Danny Spooner sings And When They Dance

Chorus (after each verse):
And when they dance their dresses spin round,
They travel so light that they scarce touch the ground,
And the smiles on their faces would win any crowd
The lasses who dance ’til the morning.

I play in a band, I’ve played all around,
From Perth in the west to old Melbourne Town,
But one thing delights me each time I look down
It’s the lasses who dance ’til the morning.

I’ve played for the gentry I’ve played for them all,
From the old bush hut to the debutante’s ball,
But one thing unites them the great and the small
It’s the lasses who dance ’til the morning.

And when the dance ends and they all leave the floor
Their legs are so weary tired and sore
But who are the ones that keep yellin’ for more?
It’s the lasses who dance till the morning.

So, long may I travel and far may I roam
Around this big country we call our home
Playing for people that I’ll never know
And the lasses who dance till the morning.