Waltzing Matilda

Subject: RE: Waltzing Matilda
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 04 Jul 04 - 09:59 AM

G'day Barrie,

I can well believe a British Forces parody of Waltzing Matilda might have originated in the Boer War Era ... a lot of the Queenslander bushmen who learned it around Winton in 1895 would have enlisted in Australian colonial units. Richard Magoffin, in his books about the song has maintained the parodies started then ... and "obscenity" runs deep in forces songs. That same reticence to sing - or record - the words is mentioned in accounts of snippets appearing in Australia in the between- and post- war periods.

I stand by my conjecture that a song staying entirely sub rosa for several centuries - then popping up all over the world takes a lot of creditting.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Waltzing Matilda
From: GUEST,Pete Coe
Date: 08 Jul 04 - 05:44 PM

I returned from a gig in Blackpool last night where I'd sung 'The Bold Fusilier' to find an Email from Barrie Roberts who told me about these threads & the fact that he'd been accused of recording my song for Dutch/Danish Radio & telling them that the song was traditional, as a joke! Barrie Roberts is innocent, OK? He was one of the people I asked about the rest of the song after I'd discovered the first verse as I knew he'd been out to Australia. I remember him saying that he'd got the first verse too but couldn't find the rest & he's always known that I filled in the rest of the verses including singing the re-created song at his folk club in Walsall. He's always given me credit for it. Would that others be as well informed as there's a lot of opinionated misinformation on these threads. Mind you, it's a compliment to have my song accepted as traditional even if it is registered with PRS/MCPS & I do get royalties for it.
It may well be that the 'Roberts' mentioned may have been Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman who perform the song & who originally thought it was traditional. I think they now credit me with the re-created song. that doesn't stop some audiences telling them that it's nothing to do with me, 'it's a traditional song, hundreds of years old, it's even sung by The Sealed Knot Society'. There was even a letter in The Times last September which said quite definitely that it was written by 'Strawhead', she had it on one of their LPs. On this LP it says quite clearly that Strawhead learned it off me! In fact I saw Chris Pollington of Srawhead only a few weeks ago. They'd just done a gig at Blenheim Palace for some Battle re-enactment society & performed the song. When they'd finished several people came up to them to give them the 'right words', this happens quite often, so Chris tells me. The 'right words' always turn out to be based on my own 'originals', which is the version they stick to, politely refusing all other pale imitations. There follows my account of the re-creation of the song & my 'original' words.

The Bold Fusilier ...
Pete Coe confesses all ...

In 1967, I discovered a children's
magazine which had an article about a song called "The Gay Fusilier",
sung to a tune now widely known as "Waltzing Matilda". The lady
who sang the song to the collector was too embarrassed to sing all
but the first verse ( it was a soldier's song after all!). So there
I was with just a first verse and a tune. I asked around and nobody
else had the rest of the song. One or two had what I had, and had
asked around in their turn, but similarly had nothing more.

I set to in 1970 'ish to write the rest of the verses - using the collected first verse and tune as a pattern BUT echoing some of the 20th century experiences of growing up in an area of high unemployment in the North West of England i.e. one of the main options for school leavers was to join the forces. Several members of my family did just that and I tried to reflect the arguments for and against and the economic circumstances which sometimes affected their decisions.

I recorded my version of the re-made song in 1971 on the Leader
/ Trailer album "Open the Door and Let us in" - Pete & Chris Coe,
which is now unavailable, and this is the version which re-rooted
itself in the English Folk scene and was recorded by others far and
near. For obvious reasons the song title was changed to "The Bold Fusilier", but it's also known as 'The Streets Of Rochester' & The Rochester Recruiting Sergeant'

With regard to the melody, there's a book called "On The Origins Of
Waltzing Matilda" by Harry H Pearce ( Hawthorn Press) which identifies
the tune to be a version of a Scottish Pipe tune called "Craigielee"
and mixed up with other possible European tunes and returned to these
shores by the soldiers in Marlboroughs wars.

It seems to surprise some (Australian) academics and anoraks that
Banjo Patterson - like many of his contemporaries - knew quite a lot
about folk songs and if he did write "Waltzing Matilda" to a well
known tune, he was only following in the footsteps of Robert Burns,
William Blake and others who often wrote new words to existing traditional
tunes or had old tunes in mind for some of their poems.

Unfortunately the argument seems to have been seized upon by Nationalists
who really ought to get out more.

My recreated song was taken up by the Sealed Knot Society who substitute Cromwell for Marlborough, other Battle Re-enactment Societies perform it too, it's even been translated into Spanish. These versions are all clearly adaptations of my recreated original (enclosed) though I'm not always credited. In September '03 there were letters in The Times about the origins of the song. I didn't reply, being a Guardian Man, but it was interesting to read quite a lot of opinionated misinformation.

The version of the song now popularly sung was re-created by me and
is copyright Backshift Music. It is registered as such with MCPS & PRS & I do get royalties. All due credits please.

That's all I know.

THE GAY FUSILIER (Later changed to Bold!!)

Words: PETER COE
Tune: TraditionaI (adapted)
               
        1.         A gay fusilier came marching down through Rochester,
                Bound for the wars in the low country,
                And he sang as he marched through the crowded streets of Rochester,
                Who'll be a soldier for Marlborough with me.
                
CHORUS
                Who'll be a soldier, who'll be a soldier
                Who'll be a soldier for Marlborough with me,
                And he sang as he marched through the crowded streets of Rochester,
                Who'll be a soldier for Marlborough with me.
                     
2.        Not I, said the baker, nor I said the mason,
        Most of the people with them did agree,
        To be paid in the powder and rattle of the cannonball
        Wages for soldiers for Marlborough and thee
                
CHORUS
                Wages for soldiers .... (etc.)

3.        The King he has ordered new troops for the continent,
        To strike the last blows at the enemy
        And if you'd be a rover all in a scarlet uniforn
        Take the King's shilling for Marlborough and me.
CHORUS
                Take the King's shilling ... (etc.)

4.         Oh I, said a young man, have long endured the parish queue,
        No work or wages, for the likes of me,
        Starvation or danger, it shall prove my destiny
        To seek fresh employment with Marlborough and thee

   CHORUS         Seek fresh employment .. (etc)
        
5.        So forty new recruits went marching down through Rochester
        Bound for the wars in the low country,
        And they sang as they marched through the crowded streets of Rochester,
        Who'll be a soldier for Marlborough with me.
                     

                         ® Pete Coe. pub Backshift Music

Subject: RE: Waltzing Matilda
From: GUEST,Barrie Roberts
Date: 08 Jul 04 - 09:09 PM

Pete -- I thank you for exonerating me. Now I can walk out in daylight again.
I hesitate to stir this pot further, but isn't there a suggestion above that a song from Marlborough's day wouldn't survive into the 20th century? And isn't there a US song called 'Molly Brooks' which is a corruption of an English song --- 'Marlbrough has gone to war' --- and hasn't that got a French couisin, 'Marlbrough se va'ten guerre'. Aren't they all about the Duke of Marlborough and aren't they all still around?
Keep waltzing your matildas, lads, and stay away from billabongs.

Subject: RE: Waltzing Matilda
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 08 Jul 04 - 11:02 PM

G'day Barrie,

My argument is not that a song from Marlborough's era would not survive, but that this specific song would not go totally unnoticed in Britain for two centuries ... during which both the "Romantic" revival of many folklore songs and the later "scientific" collection of folksong occurred - then spontaneously reappear all over Australia. The detail (common to several accounts of collecting versions of this song) of the informant singing only the first verse (the one closely matching the already well-known Waltzing Matilda) ... because the rest of the song was too obscene ... is a strong support for the conclusion that the song these informants had was one being bandied about by soldiers in the Boer War or WW I - and directed at Australians - who were widely noted at the time as being keen on singing Waltzing Matilda).

I am certain that elements of older songs (more likely German than English) all inform Waltzing Matilda ... and a good friend of mine, Don Brian, has advanced the theory that Paterson was quite consciously using both concealed meanings and associations with some older Germanic sources to covertly remind Bob MacPherson of his doubts about MacPherson's impartiality in his inquest into the death of the (German) bloke who set fire to the Dagworth Station (MacPherson's) woolshed during the great Shearers' Strike. Paterson did not go home from Dagworth a friend of the MacPhersons - even if he may have made a play for Christina.

Certainly, old songs like Marlbrooke (Marlborough) se va t'en guerre survived (even if only as childrens' songs). In fact, Marlbrooke is the first European song known to have been sung in Australia ... and the first such song known to have been passed on by oral transmission! Shortly after the First Fleet had anchored in Botany Bay (before they realised it wasn't worth bothering with - and moved the colony up the coast to Sydney Cove) the French explorer Le Compte de La Perouse sailed into Botany Bay. The naval officers of both groups socialised ... and the only song they had in common was Marlbrooke, so they sang that (presumably, ad nauseam!). The next morning, English officers reported hearing the Australian natives, passing by in their canoes, singing the same melody.

However, Marlbrooke is certainly not Waltzing Matilda (or Thou Bonnie Wood of Craigielea). The event of Paterson's hearing Craigielea) - as remembered by Christina MacPherson from the local arrangement played the year before at Warrnambool Races is well documented ... not by Paterson - but by the Macpherson women, whose papers are now available for study. The tune had been widely available in Australia ever since the days of Governor Macquarie, over half a century before, as the tune was his wife's favourite and he imported band arrangements for the Marine Band.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Waltzing Matilda
From: GUEST,Keith A o Hertford
Date: 09 Jul 04 - 04:50 AM

Great to have Mr. Pete Coe himself put the record straight on his fine song, always a winner at a singaround.

For future reference it would be useful if it could be placed in a thread with a more obviously relevant title.

It has the unusual distinction for a credited song, that it appears twice in the DT under different titles. One version is given with 'I can not stand the parish queue' instead of the superior 'I've long endured....' and 'salvation or danger' instead of 'starvation and danger'

all in a scarlet uniform,
Keith

Subject: RE: Waltzing Matilda
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 26 Sep 24 - 07:03 PM

Adventures in Poetry - Waltzing Matilda
Poetry Extra   - BBC radio 4 - 2010

Was "the alternative Australian national anthem" written as a political statement or a way of impressing a girl?

Peggy Reynolds examines Banjo Paterson's lyric Waltzing Matilda, with help from some contemporary Australian voices.

Producer Christine Hall

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0023782

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^ occasionally repeated; currently available to about 20th October 2024