Click Go the Shears

Click Go the Shears was probably the most wide pread and enduring of the old-time shearers’ songs. It was still frequently to be heard in the sheds of the Western Line of NSW in the last half of the twentieth century. The tune came from an American Civil War song, Ring the Bell, Watchman, and was later used for the revival hymn Pull for the Shore, and for a number of temperance anthems, including one from the Salvation Army.
The opening verse of Click Go the Shears is a parody of Ring the Bell, written by Henry Lawson, who wrote about the song in his essay ‘The Songs They Used to Sing’. Versions don’t seem to differ much – the song was first published in written format in 1946 in an article by Percy Jones. The version in this book is as sung by A L Lloyd in the 1950s.