His Great-grandfather was a missionary man
And his grandpa was an old prospector
His daddy was a farmer and he went bust
At the hands of the debt collector
He was raised on a ranch by a dried up river,
He was wiry as a wag 'n bietjie thorn
And they gave him a name and the name just stuck,
Right from the day he was born.
Ridgeback, Ridgeback; one of those wild kind of men,
But if you look him straight in the eye,
You'll see the mark of a friend.
His great-grandmother was a Huguenot's wife,
And his granny was a Dutch school teacher.
His mother was the daughter in a family of twelve,
But her father was a reform preacher
And mixed in his blood from his predecessors
Were the many kinds of qualities of man
And the end result was a special breed,
Carved in the shape of the land.
Ridgeback, Ridgeback; one of those wild kind of men,
But if you look him straight in the eye,
You'll see the mark of a friend.
Now the missionary in him took him all around the world,
But the farmer brought him back to settle
And the prospector took him down the mine
In the search for the precious metal.
And the Huguenot showed him the wine of lovin',
And the schoolteacher taught him how to drink
And the way that he spoke his words of love
Were not like a poet would think.
Ridgeback, Ridgeback; one of those wild kind of men,
But if you look him straight in the eye,
You'll see the mark of a friend.
You can see him on a Sunday when he goes to church
All dressed in his best and praying.
You can see him in the bar or in the park,
As he watches his children playing.
You can see him in the fields of tall tobacco,
You can talk to him man to man.
You can see him dressed in jungle green
With a rifle in his hand.
Ridgeback, Ridgeback; one of those wild kind of men,
But if you look him straight in the eye,
You'll see the mark of a friend.
Ridgeback, Ridgeback; one of those wild kind of men,
But if you look him straight in the eye,
You'll see the mark of a friend.