I’m Texas Dann,
but just call me Tick.
I didn’t grow up in the town
I didn’t grow up in the sticks
I grew up out around Boundary Road.
We grew up fast, and a little bit tough
We had enough to eat, but it was only ever enough
A lot of hunting to keep us fed when the dough was low.

It’s a mile and a half to get down to the sea
But that never used to stop me
Getting down there pretty well every day after school
Rod, handline, trap or net
I’ll take anything I can get
Because fishing is what I was born to do.

I asked my mother,
“Why did you give this name to me?”
She said, "Your father
And I used to watch those old cowboy movies.
And that lonesome Texas country
Made us feel so free.
Texas made us free".

I had a hard time understanding why
All the old folks would do is sigh
When I told them I wanted to be a crayfisherman,
They’d say “Son, blackfellas don’t own boats
It’s been like that since God only knows
I suppose they don’t like it when we get too equal to them.”

But the crayfishermen were so rich
It made my blood race around and itch
To get a boat of my own, and drop down a a whole army of pots.
But the deckies at the docks, they laughed in my face
And said “Not here brother. Go to Shark Bay
Work with the Malays, and that’s the best damn deal you’ll cop.”

So with my cousin,
And his Mum, and grannies too.
We hit the road northward in 1962.
Yes, I was thinking
as I was drinking in the view
This was just like Texas.
I’m gonna be a cowboy too.

Getting a job didn’t take long,
As you can see, I’m a little bloke, but I got myself strong
And my hands got tougher than a dead old ironbark.
I even found love at the Denham camp
She was 21, and her name was Dianne
And we loved like lovers do when there’s a spark.

You know when things are going so well,
and you don’t know why, but you go and sabotage yourself?
Well I did, and I lost Dianne and my kids.
I think back on the man I’d become
And it hurts to say, but I’m glad they run
They didn’t deserve the pain I caused, from the shameful things I did.

And my brother
Took me back to Rangeway.
It was so bigger now,
and tired-er, and wilder every way.
But I cleaned myself up
And I escaped from Texas.
I crawled, half alive, out of Texas.
and freedom has it’s price to pay.

I don’t live bad now, though I don’t have much
I love my brother to bits. I guess I see my kids often enough.
Dianne’s married again, she’s living in Perth.
I’ve got a dog, and a caravan
I have a smoke and a drink every now and again
But I give back to my people, as good as I can serve.

If my life was something I could choose
I would have been born in a pair of shiny boots
With a silver spoon, in a big crayfishing clan.
My deckies would be blackfellas like us
Dianne and I would sit on the Chamber of Commerce
Yes, I’d be 'Texas Dann: Crayfisherman'.

When I’m alone, now
Fishing Page’s Beach.
I wonder how different life might have been
if, as a child, I could have reached
out and grabbed my dream and had
the biggest fleet in Texas -
I'd the sail the desert seas of Texas.
I smile. I smile
because my dreams are free.

I’m dreaming of Texas.
I'm dreaming of Texas
I'm dreaming of Texas
I'm dreaming of being free.