The Larrikin’s Lyre: Barney Dawson’s Ballad of Booze, Birds, and Belting Out Tunes
It was just after 3 AM when the unmistakable rumble of Barney Dawson’s beat-up Holden ute came rolling up my street. As the rusted workhorse pulled into my driveway with a gnarly squeal of the brakes, the driver’s side window rolled down to reveal the weathered mug of the 60-something muso himself.
“OP!” he hollered with a giant, gold-toothed grin. “You’re not still visitin’ the dreamboat, are ya?”
I shook my head and stifled a yawn as I approached the ute. Even before sunrise, Barney Dawson was a whirlwind of energy – the kind of bloke who could run Winx into the ground without breaking a sweat.
“Hop in, ya drongo! We’re skippin’ rego and crackin’ tinnies before checkout time!”
I barely had a chance to fully comprehend his words before a calloused hand gripped my forearm and hauled me over the ute’s doorframe and into the sagging passenger seat. With a cackle, Barney stomped on the gas, and we were off – leaving twin trails of smoke in our wake.
Twenty minutes later, I found myself seated in a dingy alleyway behind the Oxford Tavern, cracking open the first of what would be many frosties with Barney and his equally rambunctious band, The Ripcords.
“Righto, ya legends!” Barney bellowed as the small but merry crew knocked their tins together. “What’s the go for writin’ today?”
“Dunnowhatcha mean, Daws?” Gordo, the Ripcords’ heavily-tattooed drummer, slurred through a mouthful of amber froth. “I thought we was just gettin’ outrageously buttered for the heckuvit!”
A rowdy peal of laughter rose up from the men – all of them grizzled, hard-living blokes who looked like they’d been recycled from the Motley Crue tour circa 1987. It was hard to believe these were the same larrikins whose bluesy pub anthems had spread like a bogan bush fire across Australia over the past decade.
“Well, ya half-witted drips!” Barney snapped once the cackling had subsided. “Obviously we’re celebratin’ droppin’ our freshest thunda cut – ‘The Lyre of the Larrikin’!”
He held up a crumpled tracklist featuring the album’s title emblazoned in what looked worryingly like dried blood, beer, and baked bean sauce.
“You know how we do it, right? We sink tins, root birds if we’re lucky, and pump out chart-toppers like there’s no tomorrow! That’s the only lifestyle worth livin’, if ya ask me.”
At that, the crew let out a raucous cheer of approval, raising their crumpled tinnies skyward. I cleared my throat awkwardly.
“So…this album, it’s about making the most of life, right? About seizing the day and all that?”
The larrikins turned to me with matching expressions of bewilderment. After several painfully silent seconds, Barney gave a dismissive snort.
“Just bleedin’ shaded it on the money, didn’t ya, mate?” He took a long pull of his beer, then belched thunderously. “‘The Lyre of the Larrikin’ is about takin’ every day as it comes and tellin’ life to go and get stuffed! Livin’ for the moment, no regrets, and definitely no sittin’ around whingein’ about it!”
As if on cue, the rest of the band launched into a deafening chorus of flatulence, burps, and absurdly off-key vocal runs. Grimacing, I accepted another frosty from the cooler beside me.
“So…what tracks can fans look forward to?” I asked once the cacophony had subsided. “Any lyrical themes or standout songs?”
“Well, let’s see…” Barney furrowed his bushy brows in contemplation. “There’s a rippa about seein’ how many garn-flakes you can shack up with in one night. Real propa epic tale of drunken zest for life, that one!”
“Yeah, that one’s a corker!” Baz, the band’s bassist, chimed in with an approving whistle. “My personal favorite’s gotta be ‘The Sir-Drinksalot and the Case of the Night Cheese!’ Now there’s a story to live by!”
Gordo snickered loudly and clapped Baz on the back so hard it nearly toppled him from his milk crate seat.
“You sad old bastard! That track’s nothin’ but gibberish! All you want is another excuse to keep soakin’ up piss like a fat kid in Bali!”
The group erupted into another fit of hyena-like laughter, sloshing their beers freely as Baz lobbed creative insults in return. I took a long pull of my own tinny, steeling myself for the long night – or rather, long morning – ahead.
By the time the first rosy fingers of dawn were creeping over the horizon, the larrikins and I had drained the cooler of every last drop. We’d also witnessed an impromptu debauchery-fueled garage band set, a spirited debate over whose missus was the biggest lyric-writing inspiration (“Mine’s a bonza root but dumb as a garbo, so she gets me good and riled!” “Oh yeah? Well MY ‘ol lady’s a flamin’ galah, but she reckons my chords’d make Hendrix blush!”), and a brief but impassioned shoving match after Gordo accused Baz of stashing a few tinnies down his pants for later.
As the Ripcords piled back into Barney’s ute and the guttural rumble of the exhaust faded into the morning stillness, I was left to my own contemplations on what it truly meant to live life like a larrikin. Was it simply about indulging every hedonistic whim that crossed one’s addled mind? Or was there a deeper, more profound joy to be found in casting off society’s staid conventions in favor of wholly authentic expression?
I chuckled to myself as I recalled Barney’s parting words, hollered from the ute’s window with a wild cackle:
“See ya ’round, ya sad air conditioner! We’re off to make today our bάρthday, and then it’s right back to the shed to brew up another album full of liquid life lessons! HOOROOOO!”
Maybe there was no great meaning to unpack after all. Maybe the highest form of unconventional wisdom was simply to soak up each new dawn with a tinny in hand and the fear of responsibility held firmly at bay.
Or maybe I’d just had one too many frothies myself…
