G'day Seth, Bill D & Luke,

The waltz tune Starry Night for a Ramble is still popular in Australia. I was asked if there were more words than the 8 short lines associated with it here and I came across an old London broadsheet, in material relating to Australian songs, tunes and versions, gleaned from the major UK libraries by Ron Edwards, an Australian folklorist.

I don't have the full words handty to this computer, but I will look them up tonight (actually, I think I posted them to DigiTrad, but they may not yet be in the latest version). Anyway, this version talks about popular pastimes of the big city - about 1855 - contrasting them with the simple pleasures of a ramble on a starry night with a "significant other".

As the song was popular (probably on the music hall stage) around the time many British packed up and came to look for gold in Australia (and America at much the same time) it probably spread widely and quickly. Here in Australia, all the guff about London pastimes was quickly forgotten and only the delights of a starry night remained (and it slowed down from the 6/8 jig remebered in Britain to a nice 3/4 waltz).

I am interested to see Bill D's (or the Beers family's) extra verses (which also completely forget the fashionable fripperies of Victorian London). Where do these come from geographically and how far back do they trace the song? I know that it was a very much loved song in Australia and have heard of a family being gathered around the death bed of an old man (grandfather of the person who passed on this tale), asked by him to sing this very song, the last thing he heard on this earth.

If my posted version is not yet in DigiTrad, I will pop a copy in this thread later tonight, after I get back form singing for country patients, down in Sydney for chemo or radiation treatments at St Vincent's Hospital.

Regards,

Bob Bolton