As soon as Albert was conceived, in southern New South Wales,
He started humming fast arpeggios and trills and scales;
He soon developed melody and harmony and rhythm -
He'd've played piano in the womb if only he'd had one with 'im.

Instead he sang: this boy soprano sang to his heart's content;
He warbled all the day, his foetal vocal cords unspent.
His parents couldn't sleep at night, they couldn't still their hearts
For all the din he made within his mother's private parts.

He carolled like an angel, he droned just like a druid:
To his task he warmed though he performed in amniotic fluid.
Arias and airs and chants, they tickled his wish to please,
And yet his fingers fairly itched to tickle the ivories.

Amidst the lullabies and serenades and hymns was strewn
A slightly weird and melancholic but yet a poignant tune ...
"Albert's Air", they christened it - a song of hope and doom,
The most melodic music ever written in the womb.

The birth was uneventful - this scarcely-new-born child
Emerged. He looked about him, yawned, and burpfully he smiled.
But when the midwife smacked his bottom, amidst the pain and trauma
He broke out not with a cry but with a full-blown Nessun Dorma.

Yet when he'd finished singing little Albert seemed quite bored;
His tiny fingers twitched and tried to play his umbilical chord -
Observed by Mum and Dad, who then went out and bought a brand-
New piano, fit for their son. It was, of course, a baby grand,

Manufactured locally, valley-born and bred:
Local timbers, local timbres, from Terry Rebbeck's shed;
Something of a honky-tonk, as everyone agrees,
But Albert loved it from the moment his hands first touched the keys.

Just one month old, this virtuoso played it like a dream;
He made those cedar ivories and blackbutt hammers scream:
Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Greig: and though he played them all with flair,
His favourite composition was the doleful "Albert's Air".

He played it sweetly, lovingly, and pianissimo,
This perfect little serenade he played adagio,
Performing with dexterity, sincerity and control;
Strong women howled and wombats wept; he touched one's very soul.

At two years old he played in church - the Protestant variety -
Though twice he went across the road to prove his general piety;
But then he ruined it all by supping with Beelzebub,
Playing at a meeting of the valley Lions Club.

At three years old he started doing gigs at synagogues,
Weddings, funerals, and special barbecues for dogs.
The puny runt was everywhere and no one dare gainsay it:
Wherever there was a piano little Albert was there to play it.

At five years old he gave a concert at the dairy farm,
Playing with great facility, felicity and charm.
Amongst the listeners were the minister, his mistress and his spouse,
Cedar-getters, pox-doctors' clerks, Dirty Dan's dad and cows.

Amid the cowpats and the steaming tubs of udder grease
The patrons heard the Moonlight and a charming FŸr Elise.
"Maestro!" they hollered, "You bewdy pearler little Ozzie!"
As Albert played a piece by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozzie -

And unctuous "Albert's Air", of course, which hushed the audience
And plucked their very heart-strings - and other ligaments;
No eye was dry, of young and old, of every lad and lass;
Even the cows were moved to tears and bovine methane gas.

Some folks opined the situation was iniquitous,
For Albert and his instrument were now ubiquitous;
The village elders cried "Let's pay for Albert to appear
In London, Paris, Rome, Vienna - anywhere but here!"

So Albert, all of twelve, for pastures even greener than
The fields of Kangaroo Valley, left home and thence became a man -
And megasuperstar, of which he was the very essence,
With actresses and groupies, all of it pre-adolescence.

He played the finest venues, from Carnegie Hall on down,
He even played in jazz clubs in the seamier side of town.
From Paris to Barcelona he held each audience in thrall;
The greatest triumph of all was Albert in Royal Albert Hall.

He supped from finest china-ware and sipped from jeroboam -
And yet he missed the village life, the green green grass of hoam.
He'd won more gushing plaudits than his heart had e'er desired,
So little Albert, though much loved, officially retired.

He had just one ambition now, one trophy yet to fall:
To play for silent movies at the Kangaroo Valley Hall.
At fourteen years of age he was a pianist unbeaten

No more travelling, no more groupies, Albert was content,
Living through his teenage years a youthful life well spent:
A 1920s Robert Constable, with skill and flair,
Improvising melodies and playing "Albert's Air".

Sometimes he played in Kangaloon and other foreign parts,
Once or twice in Berry and the Nowra School of Arts;
No more a life of glamour, champers, good-time girls and fun -
Now the quiet satisfaction of a job well done.

But then the talkies came. At once the silent movie biz
Fell silent. At once the industry had lost its pop and fizz;
At once a life that offered pleasures genial and abundant
Was gone, and unsuspecting Albert found himself redundant.

Redundant! Albert!! International super-pianist,
Despite his rare achievements so off-handedly dismissed.
Playing under silent movies was for him quite destinal,
Its devastating loss demanding fortitude intestinal.

Stressed. Depressed. Distressed. Oppressed, his life now seemed a scourge
As "Albert's Air" became more like a soulful, doleful dirge.
His heart beat slow diminuendo, his vital forces slumped -
And, crossing Hampden Bridge one morning, suddenly he jumped.

And on a cold and windy night, even today, if you
Tiptoe among the trees downstream a blust'rous mile or two,
At twenty-three past midnight on a rising moon - beware:
The breezes rattle his bones and play a ghostly Albert's Air.