The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #70028   Message #1192325
Posted By: Desert Dancer
23-May-04 - 08:34 PM
Thread Name: Lyr ADD: Overlanders
Subject: RE: Lyric Req: Overlanders
A DT search on "overlanders" gets you

Queensland Overlanders

Presumably transcribed from Gordon Bok.

The song appears in the Penguin Australian Song Book (J.S. Manifold, 1964) as "The Queensland Drover", with two tunes for the one text.

A few differences from the DT version:
- The DT second verse ("men from every land") is the third verse; and it ends with "the Queensland overlanders" (not "rovers")
- There's a sixth verse not mentioned above, either:

Now I'm bound for home once more,
on a prad that's quite a goer;
I can find a job with a crawling mob
on the banks of the Maranoa.

Manifold's notes on the song:

Known from childhood. The first tune is one that I must have learnt from my father, and heard again from Vance Palmer in 1950. Both men would have picked it up in southern central Queensland at about the same time, circa 1900. The tune given in Palmer and Sutherland is not exactly the same. The second tune, with verses agreeing so closely as to be printable as one version, was sung to me by Mrs. Webb, late of Cairns, in 1962. It appears to be a descendent of the tune 'Dearest Mae' given by Anderson. Text is from Bandicoot Ballads.

~ Becky in Tucson