The Sao* Song

Words & Music: Pat Drummond

For Alice Oppen and all the members of The Arnott Family

Dateline: Macdonaldtown 1955

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Over the past 100 years, Arnotts Biscuits have become a much loved part of the Australian cultural landscape. Their famous bright red 'parrot' trucks are not only a wonderful national icon, but their 'bikkies' were very much an integral part of the 'baby boomers' experience of family times. This song, about the widespread transfer of parental responsibility to government institutions and the subsequent decline in the quality of our lives, uses the humble SAO as a rallying point. It's also a tribute to all the Mums who put up with so much, for so long, from so many.

 

Chorus: Can you put a Sao in your gob in one go?

Can you jam it all in and give us a grin, without breaking the corners off?

Can you put a Sao in your gob in one go?

When I was a kid, if one of us did, that kid'd be the king of the block.

 

When I was a kiddie in the nineteen sixties, each day we'd come home;

Mum'd make us milkshakes and ask how the day'd gone.

Then it was up the back for the cricket match

where the whole world came to play

but we'd drop our bats and stop dead in our tracks

when one of the kids'd say.

Chorus:

 

Now mostly Mum'd catch us but she'd fail to see the joke.

She'd say "You wouldn't have a brain to begin with. You kids'll bloody choke!"

Then she'd grab the pack and give us a whack and the cricket match went on.

We were backyards full of Bradmans singing 'the Sao song'.

 

Chorus:

 

Now it seems all trace of the baby boomer years has slipped away;

Sao Biscuits after school and a Mum to watch you play.

For the kid's are in the Daycare centres now from the moment that they're born

and the backyard died of loneliness when the cricket left the lawn.

But in the last few homes where the garden gnomes

and the 'Hills Hoist' rule the day; if you listen very carefully

you'll sometimes hear them say.

Chorus:

 

* Sao is a registered trademark of the Arnotts Biscuits Company of Australia

 

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