Subject: Lyr Add: HOW GILBERT DIED (A. B. From: GUEST,Arkie Date: 19 Nov 00 - 08:43 PM I stumbled on this poem by Banjo Paterson some time ago and have been intrigued by it. All I know is that John Gilbert was a bushranger and subject of at least three poems by Peterson. Has it been given a tune and has it been recorded? Also can anyone add anything to the history or mythology of John Gilbert?
HOW GILBERT DIED |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died From: Amos Date: 19 Nov 00 - 08:45 PM Wow! What a tale. And, I guess, relatively true? Anyone know? A |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died From: Naemanson Date: 19 Nov 00 - 09:10 PM That is quite a tale. I noticed a few details that would indicate either the age of the poem or the authenticity of the event.
For the water ran from the rifle breech... This indicates that not only are the bushrangers using rifled muskets but the troopers are as well. A modern poet might have talked of bullets instead of balls. The water indicates that someone has soaked the gunpowder in a muzzle loading weapon. But you guys probably already knew all of that. |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died From: DonMeixner Date: 19 Nov 00 - 09:51 PM I expect you meant "A. B. "Banjo" Paterson. A favorite poet of mine. Look for his poems "Lost" and one about a horse auction, the title escapes me now. Don |
Subject: Lyr Add: JOHN GILBERT (BUSHRANGER)(Banjo Paterson) From: Amos Date: 19 Nov 00 - 09:57 PM Here's a bit more on the old Bushranger, by the same author around 1905:
John Gilbert (Bushranger)(Air: "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.") John Gilbert was a bushranger of terrible renown, "We have all of us a fancy for experiments in pillage, John Gilbert said he thought he saw no obstacle to hinder a The Canowindra populace cried "Here's a lot of strangers!!!" And Johnny Gilbert said, said he, "We'll never hurt a hair So Johnny Gilbert took the town (including public houses), And every stranger passing by they took, and when they got him So Johnny Gilbert ne'er allows an anxious thought to fetch him, Old Bush Song |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died From: DonMeixner Date: 19 Nov 00 - 10:18 PM The other poem is called, "In The Droving Days" Lost, by Banjo Paterson Incase the link fails, go here. http://dingo.uq.oz.au/~mlwham/banjo/lost.html Don |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died From: Alan of Australia Date: 19 Nov 00 - 11:24 PM G'day, Gilbert was one of the Ben Hall gang, see also The Streets Of Forbes, but note that the DT version could do with some correcting. The poem above has been recorded as a song by "Wallis & Matilda". They made some albums of Paterson's poems set to music. Their name is an obvious play on Words, "Waltzing Matilda" being a Paterson song. W&M also recorded a version of "Lost" as a song. And let's finally get the name Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson spelt right :)
Cheers, |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died From: DonMeixner Date: 19 Nov 00 - 11:29 PM I spelted it right Alan, the computer stutters on "T"s is all. Don |
Subject: Lyr Add: THE STREETS OF FORBES From: Alan of Australia Date: 19 Nov 00 - 11:31 PM Here's a better version:-
THE STREETS OF FORBES |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died From: GUEST,Arkie Date: 20 Nov 00 - 12:16 AM Thanks all; lets certainly get Banjo's last name spelt right. I know better. I just let my brain disengage while I typed. |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died From: GUEST,Arkie Date: 21 Nov 00 - 12:16 AM Refresh. Did Stan Coster also record this? |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died From: GUEST Date: 21 Nov 00 - 01:00 AM This is a neat story. Will have to learn it. Thanks. |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died From: Anglo Date: 21 Nov 00 - 02:02 AM One of my "birthday" songs. Songs mentioning 5th May are all about death. Italian Red Wine (Guthrie - one of the Sacco & Vanzetti songs) is another. (Just in case you wanted to know :-) |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died From: Percustard Date: 25 Jun 02 - 01:56 AM Ben didnt go to Goobang Creek. It was Goobang Mick that did him in.
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Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Hrothgar Date: 25 Jun 02 - 08:03 AM Don't let geography get in the way of a good song. |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Stewie Date: 25 Jun 02 - 08:18 AM There's an even better bush ballad relating to the death of Ben Hall that has some similarities with 'How Gilbert Died'. It is often attributed to Will Ogilvie - and I would like it to be so as he is my favourite bush poet - but is disagreement among the experts about its provenance. Nevertheless, it is a beauty which I have recited over many years. Some kind soul has posted it to the net: --Stewie. |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Percustard Date: 25 Jun 02 - 07:48 PM Hey Hrothgar, It aint geography I'm worried about. The actual words are: Ben went to Goobang Mick (not Goobang Creek). Simple mistake. A bit like saying "shouldn't of" instead of "shouldn't have" they sound the same but one is right and the other is wrong.
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Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Bob Bolton Date: 25 Jun 02 - 08:33 PM G'day Mark, Yes ... that's just a common example of the way things get muddled as the song moves away from the people who were there. Ben certainly did not go to Goobang Creek ... the night of the ambush he had gone in the other direction ... but was betrayed by Goobang Mick. Later on, people learning the song orally ... and not knowing about the details, would have assumed that "Goobang Mick" should be "Goobang Crick" (normal 'bush' pronunciation) because they knew that there was a Goobang Creek - either by knowing the area or by looking at a map. It's by no means the biggest change that has occurred in the 'folk process'! Regards, Bob Bolton |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Hrothgar Date: 26 Jun 02 - 04:41 AM Stewie, I also reckon the Will Ogilvie (and I recken he wrote it, too) one is meant to be recited. I've never heard it sung.
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Subject: Lyr Add: IN THE STABLE (Banjo Paterson) From: GUEST,Dale Date: 26 Jun 02 - 10:38 AM Well, Gilbert and Hall are not exactly the main characters here, but I guess we wouldn't have this good story without them! But first, a NOTEWORTHY LINK A collection of complete Australian literary and historical texts from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries ~~ compliments of The University Of Sydney. Here you'll find the complete texts of 8 books by Paterson as well as 9 by Lawson, and many, many others as well ~~ in PDF form. Another to pay strict attention to is the first on the list by the well known Anonymous ~~ Old Bush Songs, edited by Paterson, though that information does not show until you open the file. As usual, here is the no liability disclaimer for inadvertent html errors. As far as the spelling of O'Mealley/O'Maley is concerned, Paterson uses the shorter form, while most other references I could find list the longer. Dale IN THE STABLE
Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
WHAT! You don't like him; well, maybe—we all have our fancies, of course: . . . . .
Gilbert and Hall and O'Maley, back in the bushranging days,
Go! She went mad! She went tearing and screaming with fear through the trees,
Day after day then I chased them—'course they had friends on the sly,
It was war to the knife then, I tell you, and once, on the door of my shed,
'Twas a good three-mile run to the homestead—bad going, with plenty of trees—
Bang went a rifle behind me—the colt gave a spring, he was hit;
Yes! There's the mark of the bullet—he's got it inside of him yet |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Amos Date: 26 Jun 02 - 10:45 AM God, what a beautiful quatrain:
You may ride at a man's or maid's behest When honour or true love call
These guys are as good as Kipling! (Well, you can't kipple in this weather anyway!). A
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Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: GUEST,Ernest C Date: 26 Jun 02 - 02:54 PM Will Ogilvie, for those who have not read far enough. |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Stewie Date: 26 Jun 02 - 06:20 PM Hrothgar, I couldn't agree more. The characteristic that distinguishes bush ballads from bush songs is that the former are meant to be recited. Indeed, in most cases, to impose a tune on a bush ballad would be detrimental to it. As Bob Bolton has pointed out in another context, that is why very few Paterson pieces can be turned into songs whereas many of Lawson's poems seem tailor-made for songs. Of course, that hasn't prevented a tune being attached to 'Clancy of the Overflow' and some day some lunatic will probably try to put one to 'The Man From Snowy River' - Bob will no doubt come along and tell me it has been done already. In respect of the poem in question, here is comment from the late John Manifold:
Paterson's 'How Gilbert Died' is well known, and deserves to be. Its technique is literary; there would be no excuse for confusing it with folksong, even if the author's name were lost. But its emotional bias is pure 'folk'; it is pro-bushranger to a degree unequalled by any previous literary ballad. Some of its facts are oddly inaccurate; but the inaccuracy is relative, not absolute. In detail, the facts given about Gilbert's death which are inaccurate in that context become accurate when you substitute Hall's name for Gilbert's. The hour of the attack, the black-tracker, the darkness, the riddling of the body with bullets, which are all wrong for Gilbert, are all correct for Hall. .... It seems that Paterson was misinformed, but in a very unusual way. Where, for instance, did he pick up the notion (which he retained, it seems, all his life) that John Kelly was Gilbert's grandfather as well as Dunn's? I think he must have picked it up as a child at Binalong State School, where he claims to have sat alongside young 'Gilberts'. That is not strictly possible, as Gilbert died unmarried. But it is entirely possible that he sat alongside young Dunns, and learned from them a childish jumble of the genuine traditions. ['Who Wrote the Ballads' pp63-64] Manifold pointed out also that 'The Death of Ben Hall' - and in respect of its authorship he said that he was not 'the man to rush in where Edward Harrington fears to tread' - is also 'shockingly inaccurate'. Citing Clune's account, he wrote that Hall 'had two horses, died with his boots on, and had been only two nights on the property of Goobang Mick (who was a selector at the time, not a stockman) at the other end of the district from Gunning'. He goes on to comment that 'it accepts the hypothesis of betrayal' whereas the 'traditional ballads are chary of alloting blame'. In respect of the challenge - 'a sergeant sprang to his feet and roared, in the name of the Queen, Ben Hall' - 'no traditional ballad mentions a challenge' and 'one of them denies any challenge was given'. Paterson, who confused the 2 heroes, 'gives the police challenge in similar terms' in 'How Gilbert Died'. Manifold suggested 'Death of Ben Hall' may have been 'inspired by nothing more first-hand than the newspaper reports'. He concluded: 'Something more than mere foreigness to the district is implied by the astounding fact that this gifted but unknown balladist has constructed the dramatic climax on an absolute impossibility. Could anyone imagine poor Goobang Mick, of all people, inviting the people of Forbes to drink with him, blood money or not?' ['Who Wrote the Ballads' pp65-66]. --Stewie. |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: GUEST,Dale Date: 26 Jun 02 - 07:48 PM Uhhh, Stewie, I'm not Bob, but " it has been done already." Slim Dusty has had a version out for quite a few years. It runs 7+ minutes, and in my opinion is quite nice. I like it for any number of reasons. I bought his Australia is his Name album, Philo Rounder 1119, 1987, soon after it was released in the US. (As you can see from the link, it is now available only on cassette.)
That album was my first introduction to Mr. David Kirkpatrick and his music, AND also the poetry of A. B. Paterson. I had seen and greatly enjoyed the film, "The Man From Snowy River", (I bought a VHS copy when it became readily available) but until I bought the record, I had no idea of the origin of the story line nor understood the importance of the minor character of Banjo Paterson in the movie. I thank Slim Dusty for that, and all the things that have fallen into place since then ~~ the music of his daughter Anne Kirkpatrick, the poetry of Henry Lawson, and so many other things that it has led me to. Now maybe I had best enter this before Bob tells you " it has been done already." |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Bob Bolton Date: 26 Jun 02 - 08:11 PM G'day Stewie ... and Dale, It's interesting that the more relaxed Country styles seems to do a better job of bending Paterson into tunes than does the earnest style of the committed folkie! I think I would be inclined to recite Paterson far more than attempt to sing his verses (although the Wallis & Matilda tune for Clancy of the Overflow has become something of a standard) and that's not so true of Lawson. Regards, Bob Bolton Regards, Bob Bolton |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Stewie Date: 26 Jun 02 - 08:44 PM Thanks, Dale. I will take your word for it that Slim's rendition is 'quite nice'. However, I will not resile from my position. Like Bob, I would recite Paterson's ballads. 'The Man From Snowy River' is the archetype of the heroic style of bush balladry and I believe the imposition of a tune can only detract from its poetic force and Paterson's craftsmanship. I think Graham Jenkin has summed it up pretty well: 'The basic material the poet works with is the spoken word, and the result of his inspiration and craftsmanship is a structure demanding such subtle nuances of tone, timing, intensity, and expression, that only the human speaking voice can do it justice. Music has its own disciplines - particularly those of pitch and time - and while a competent singer can give a real amount of dramatic expression to a song, it is equally true that in putting any set of words to music, something must be lost in the compromise, as the music imposes its own tones and rhythms on the poem'. ['Songs of the Great Balladists' Rigby 1978, p132] --Stewie. |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Hrothgar Date: 27 Jun 02 - 05:34 AM And we still have a great puzzle - Lawson, as far as I know, never had any claim to be a musician, but his poetry fits sooo easily to music. This makes him different from just about all the other major Australian bush poets. Has anybody figured out the answer to that one? |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Bob Bolton Date: 27 Jun 02 - 08:19 AM G'day Hrothgar, Henry Lawson certainly was not a musician, in the playing sense, since he had a serious hearing defect, but he often referred to his poems as songs (as Paterson does in the case of one of his poems that does sing well - the one that we call Travelling Down the Castlereagh ... and he called The Bushman's Song). I think Lawson had something closer to "Bush Songs" in mnd, while Paterson mostly had Kiplingesque ballads as his model. Anyway, he discussion of Slim Dusty's version of The Man from Snowy River sent me off to listen to it once more. I have all 7 minutes and 30 seconds of it on a 1982 2-CD set from EMI: #8146732, Australia, Our Land Our Music ... still available ... but I have only seen it recently as two separate CDs. Warren Fahey's 1997 compilation, on their 2-CD set: #7243 8 14852 2 4, Australia, Our Land Our Music, Volume 2 is a much better constructed, thematic look at a wider range of Australian music (I mean - do you really want 5½ versions of Waltzing Matilda in one compilation!) - but I have not been able to find that one lately. (A pity; it's one of the few compilations I would not be embarrassed to give as a gift to an overseas friend.) Anyway, Slim's version does work - even if it veers a bit towards recitative, with guitar backing - relieved by tune modulations and backing changes. I think it shows up a definite point about Country Music - the listeners are prepared to listen ... to the whole story... in a way that Pop Music abandoned decades back. Folk style falls in an ill-defined ground somewhere between, depending on age, national alliance and venue. I think that Australians share with Americans this underlying respect for 'news' presented in song. Our common ancestors came from traditions which elaborated on style, because the content was already well known to the listeners: family, friends and near neighbours. When these same people found themselves in then open spaces of one 'new world' or another, they acquired a mobility, both geographic and social, that was unimaginable at home. Every new contact was a bearer of possibly vital news of conditions, advantages or perils on the road ahead - and song shouldered its share of this burden, along with 'yarns' and verse. This endured, indeed endures still in country regions of Australia, but the great mass of the population has gravitated to the big cities ... and 7½ minutes is two drinks, a mobile 'phone call and a quick check of the SMS message bank. Regards, Bob Bolton |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: GUEST,Arkie Date: 28 Jun 02 - 01:36 AM Nice to see this back again. Thanks to all. I'm still intrigued by this piece as the day I found it, but its nice to have the spaces filled in. |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Art Thieme Date: 28 Jun 02 - 11:30 AM Alan, Your version of "STREETS OF FORBES" is NOT in my copy of The Collected Poems Of A.B. Paterson (Angus and Robertson -- publisher-- 1959) does not contain this poem. Are you certain that it is by Paterson? Art Thieme |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Stewie Date: 28 Jun 02 - 08:13 PM Art, 'Streets of Forbes' is not by Paterson. According to John Manifold in his note in 'Penguin Australian Songbook', the 'poem was written - or at any rate written down - by Hall's brother-in-law John McGuire, an eyewitness of the ghastly procession'. The version in Manifold's book is from the singing of Mrs Ewell of Bathurst. 'McGuire's manuscript has been reprinted by Clune ['Wild Colonial Boys'] and by Stewart and Keesing'. The version Alan posted is the Manifold one which Manifold noted differed [from the McGuire manuscript] 'in a few lines (for the better, I think)'. --Stewie. |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Art Thieme Date: 29 Jun 02 - 12:56 AM Stewie, Thank you. These are fine poems, aren't they? They do often seem to demand tunes be put to 'em. I always have thought that so many of the Aussie songs and bush poems are better than or at least equal to the U.S.'s lumber camp ballads and cowboy songs, the British whaling songs and ballads etc. etc. Art |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 13 Sep 03 - 03:50 AM The link mentioned above has now relocated A collection of complete Australian literary and historical texts from the 18th, Robin |
Subject: RE: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Bill D Date: 13 Sep 03 - 11:11 AM many Paterson works also located at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/authorstart?P (along with Lawson & others) wonderful resources! |
Subject: How Gilbert Died - Youtube From: Arkie Date: 18 Aug 11 - 12:42 PM A couple of entries of How Gilbert Died have made it to youtube. One sort of sung and the link to the one that is recited. How Gilbert Died |
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Joe Offer Date: 18 Aug 11 - 11:38 PM I really like this one, sung by Chloe and Jason Roweth. Who are/were the Black Police? -Joe- |
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: How Gilbert Died (Banjo Paterson) From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 19 Aug 11 - 02:29 AM Aboriginal Trackers |
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