G'day AKS,

I thought I had this sung by Alistair himself ... if si it is on a compilation album, and I can't find it. However, I do have Wongawilli singing it on their Musica Pangaea CD Australian Tradition: Musica Pangaea 10009. The Wongas are a beaut Aussie group with a strong traditional base - and not infectied by the current tendency to pass off a secondhand Irish pub band as a bush band.

I had a good listen to Graham Murray's singing and it is pretty much as I amended your original posting, but I have done a corrected version:

The Swaggies have all Waltzed Matilda Away

SWAGGIES HAVE ALL WALTZED MATILDA AWAY
(Alistair Hulett)

You came to this country in fetters and chains,
Outlaws and rebels with numbers for names
And on the triangle were beaten and maimed;
Your blood stained the soil of Australia.

Dukies and dutchesses, flash lads and whores;
You worked their plantations and polished their floors,
Lived in their shadow and died in their wars:
Blood stained the soil of Australia.
ch:
Does it quicken your heartbeat to see tar and concrete
Cover the tracks of the old bullock dray?
Have you grown so heartless, to christen it progress
When the swaggies have all waltzed Matilda away?

Driven like dogs from your own native home;
Hardship and poverty caused you to roam
Over the bracken and over the foam:
Blood stained the soil of Australia.

Then in the fever of fortune and fame
You caused the poor blacks to suffer the same;
Imprisoned on missions or hunted for game:
Blood stained the soil of Australia.
Does it ...

It's two hundred years since you came to this land
Betrayed by the girl with the black velvet band
And still to this day you don't understand
That blood stained the soil of Australia.

Koorie and white, old Australians and new,
Brothers and sisters of every hue;
The future is ours take the wealth from the few
And raise the red flag in Australia.

Let it quicken your heartbeat, the road's at your own feet;
Travel it lightly and travel it well,
And don't speak of success nor christen it progress,
'Til the swaggies can all waltz Matilda as well.


There are a few references (often to old Australian songs)that you may need to have explained:
Dookies and dutchesses: Pickpockets (who stole with their 'dooks' - hands)
flash lads: Young men with a life style a bit too rich for their pockets - probably financed by petty thievery ot worse
girl with the black velvet band: Refer the song(s) of the same name (possibly an agent used by the British Government to snare urgently needed young tradesmen into the colony, as minor ofenders?)
caused the poor blacks to suffer...: Obvious reference to the various failures of black/white relations of the past 2 centuries
Koorie: The name East Coast (New South Wales) Aborigines usae for themselves. There is a move to use it for all Australian Aborignes (... not so popular with those who think of themselves as: Murries, Boories, Nwungars &c!)
Regards,

Bob Bolton