'Tis life in a half-breed shack, The rain comes pouring down; "Drip" drops the mud through the roof, And the wind comes through the wall. A tenderfoot cursed his luck And feebly cried out "yah!"
Refrain: Yah! Yah! I want to go home to my ma! Yah! Yah! this bloomin' country's a fraud! Yah! Yah! I want to go home to my ma!
He tries to kindle a fire When it's forty-five below; He aims to chop at a log And amputates his toe; He hobbles back to the shack And feebly cries out "yah"!
He gets on a bucking cayuse And thinks to flourish around, But the buzzard-head takes to bucking And lays him flat out on the ground. As he picks himself up with a curse, He feebly cries out "yah"!
He buys all the town lots he can get In the wrong end of Calgary, And he waits and he waits for the boom Until he's dead broke like me. He couldn't get any tick So he feebly cries out "yah"!
He couldn't do any work And he wouldn't know how if he could; So the police run him for a vag And set him to bucking wood. As he sits in the guard room cell, He feebly cries out "yah"!
Come all ye tenderfeet And listen to what I say, If you can't get a government job You had better remain where you be. Then you won't curse your luck And cry out feebly "yah"!