[Verse]
C G Am Em
Shotover River, your gold it is waning
F G C G
It's weeks since the color I've seen.
C G Am Em
But it's no use just sitting and Lady Luck blaming
F G Am
I'll pack up and make the break clean.
[Chorus]
G C G
Farewell to the gold that never I found,
Am F G
Goodbye to the nuggets that somewhere abound;
C G Am Em
For it's only when dreaming that I see you gleaming
F G C
Down in the dark deep underground.
[Verse]
C G Am Em
It's nearly two years since I left my old mother
F G C G
For adventure and gold by the pound.
C G Am Em
With Jimmy the prospector, he was another,
F G Am
For the hills of Otago was bound.
C G Am Em
Well we worked the Cardrona's dry valley all over
F G C G
Old Jimmy Williams and me.
C G Am Em
They were panning good dirt on the winding Shotover
F G Am
So we drifted down there just to see.
C G Am Em
We sluiced and we cradled for day after day
F G C G
Barely making enough to get by;
C G Am Em
'Til a terrible flood swept poor Jimmy away
F G Am
During six stormy days in July