G'day Suzanne,

The (Spangled) Drongo dicrurus bracteatus is a bird - a largish tropical bird that lives in the coastal forests of the north (Northern Territory and Queensland). It is also an insult for an idiotic person (alledgedly because the Drongo summers in the tropical north ... then flys SOUTH - to the colder regions - in winter).

I have not heard the tune used by the Ian Campbell group ... and have heard no other tune in Australia than Killaloo, of which it is a second generation 'parody'. In the sixties, a number of English groups sang collected Australian songs, garnered from material forwarded to the EFDSS as carbon copies of the correspondence between several of the main field collectors.

Of course, these had no tunes as they could not afford to send copy tapes. A.L. Lloyd and various friends set them to English tunes - as they were doing with old English songs known only from manuscript sources - and sang them ... to the chagrin of Australian collectors who knew the tunes that they had in this country. I suspect that this would be the case here. I would be interested to see a MIDI of the tune, if someone gets down the dots.

Regards,

Bob Bolton