The Night The Pacific Link Fell Down

By Debbie Pickett

To the tune of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by Robbie Robertson.

Not many people know this song - if you're young perhaps your parents will. The Pacific Link is the Net connection between Australia and the USA, and thence the rest of the world. It has known to be rather unreliable of late.

Monash owns my machine and I work on it every night
Till AARNET came on the scene and charged for the kilobyte
In the winter of ninety-two
We were lucky if nothing got through
In ninety-six, everything crashed
It was a time I was always strapped for cash

The night the Pacific link fell down
And all the eyes were stinging
The night the Pacific link fell down
And all the people were pinging
They went, argh, argh argh argh argh argh,
argh argh, argh argh, argh argh, argh argh.