You look out your window at the cold grey dawn
It's seven o'clock on a Monday morning
Pour a cup of coffee, better make it a strong one
Weather man on the radio says it going to rain
And it's going to blow
It'll be all right, it'll be all right, it'll be all right in the long run
Australia marched out of Vietnam
Out in the streets against Uncle Sam
We won the fight, it was a long one
Uranium demo the other way
One of my mates got dragged away
As they slammed the door I heard her say
It'll be all right in the long run.
Italian bloke who works with me
We swap laughs and company
And he slapped me on the back
He said "You're wrong, son
This isn't the land I was told it would be
It's not so equal and it's not so free"
But it'll be all right, it'll be all right, it'll be all right in the long run"
From the shadow of history a convict screams
The shearers curse, the people dream
We've taken some right turns, they've been the wrong ones
Troop ships leave and the headlines blaze
Australia remembers happier days
And the faith lives on within the haze
It'll be all right in the long run
So you sit in your camp and you stare at the fire
The doubt drops away as the hopes get higher
And you sing to yourself
It'll be all right, be all right in the long run
And the sun gives ground to a long cold night
And you screw up your courage for another fight
But you know in your heart
It'll be all right, be all right in the long run
And the sun streams in with power and might
You look at your kids in a different light
You know in your heart as you kiss them goodnight
It'll be all right in the long run
One of the people who purported to be looking after Redgum's finances told me one day that our songs were too 'wordy' and always lacked a 'hook line'. I wrote "Long Run", among other things, to prove I could write a song with a 'hook line' that wasn't entirely mindless. - JS
It's seven o'clock on a Monday morning
Pour a cup of coffee, better make it a strong one
Weather man on the radio says it going to rain
And it's going to blow
It'll be all right, it'll be all right, it'll be all right in the long run
Australia marched out of Vietnam
Out in the streets against Uncle Sam
We won the fight, it was a long one
Uranium demo the other way
One of my mates got dragged away
As they slammed the door I heard her say
It'll be all right in the long run.
Italian bloke who works with me
We swap laughs and company
And he slapped me on the back
He said "You're wrong, son
This isn't the land I was told it would be
It's not so equal and it's not so free"
But it'll be all right, it'll be all right, it'll be all right in the long run"
From the shadow of history a convict screams
The shearers curse, the people dream
We've taken some right turns, they've been the wrong ones
Troop ships leave and the headlines blaze
Australia remembers happier days
And the faith lives on within the haze
It'll be all right in the long run
So you sit in your camp and you stare at the fire
The doubt drops away as the hopes get higher
And you sing to yourself
It'll be all right, be all right in the long run
And the sun gives ground to a long cold night
And you screw up your courage for another fight
But you know in your heart
It'll be all right, be all right in the long run
And the sun streams in with power and might
You look at your kids in a different light
You know in your heart as you kiss them goodnight
It'll be all right in the long run
One of the people who purported to be looking after Redgum's finances told me one day that our songs were too 'wordy' and always lacked a 'hook line'. I wrote "Long Run", among other things, to prove I could write a song with a 'hook line' that wasn't entirely mindless. - JS