Blue Clicky:
https://www.lookandlearn.com/blog/22633/how-the-bold-fusilier-became-the-jolly-swagman/

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(added by Joe Offer)

This edited article about popular song originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 201 published on 20 November 1965.

Queen Anne was on the throne when Marlborough led his men to war, and the Kentish men sang a song as they marched through the streets of Rochester, known as The Bold Fusilier.

A gay Fusilier was marching down through Rochester,
Bound for the war in the Low Countree.
And he cried as he tramped through the dear streets of Rochester,
Who’d be a sol’jer for Marlboro’ with me?

Who’d be a so’jer, who’d be a so’jer, who’d be a so’jer for Marlboro’ with me?
And he cried as he tramped through the dear streets of Rochester
Who’d be a so’jer for Marlboro’ with me?

The Bold Fusilier slipped out of memory and years went by until one afternoon in 1894, at Dagooth Central, in Queensland, the melody was revived, never to die again.

There had been a homely party and a fine spread with good meat pies, kangaroo soup, jellies and home-made cakes. Afterwards the guests were all sitting round in the bright sunshine in the garden. It was then that Christine Macpherson, the daughter of the house, brought out her autoharp, and began to sing.

She wanted her friends to hear a tune she had just heard at Victoria races. It was catchy, it was fun. Later this was identified as the army march known as Craigielea, arranged from an old Scottish ballad, The Bonnie Wood of Craigielea and adapted from The Bold Fusilier, the song that Marlborough’s soldiers had sung when marching off to war.

Andrew Paterson – pet name “Bob” – was enchanted by the melody. He wanted to make it truly Australian, and put his own words to it.

“But what about?” Christine asked him.

His inspiration was a story her father had once told him. He and a policeman out riding came across a swagman (a seasonal workman walking to a new job) who had camped under a coolibah tree, beside Combo waterhole. The man had killed a sheep, and was eating some of it, but had tried to conceal the theft by putting back the skin over the dead sheep. Horrified by the appearance of strangers who might recognize his crime, he dived into the waterhole. Here he was dragged down by his clothes, and drowned.

As Bob Paterson told the girl the story, John Carter, the overseer, came up, and he said that he had seen a couple of swagmen “waltzing Matilda” down by the water hole. The phrase inspired Bob.

“I’ll call my song Waltzing Matilda,” he told Christine.

“What is Waltzing Matilda?” Christine asked. He told her that a matilda was the blanket roll in which a swagman tied up all his worldly goods. Waltzing Matilda meant carrying your swagbag with you.

Before long Bob Paterson had written the words to fit in with the tune of Craigielle. He got Christine to play it for him, and she was delighted. All the boys and girls went crazy about it, for it was one of those songs that you could not stop singing, and dancing to it was a real delight.

The first time Waltzing Matilda was sung in public was at the North Gregory Hotel, Winton, where today there is a plaque hanging to commemorate the event. The mayor said, “They sang it here. They went home singing it. And if you asks me they’re still singing it.”

No song ever met with a more rousing reception, and the band was worn out with having continuously to play it.

Waltzing Matilda led the Aussies through the battlefields of two grim wars. Sir Winston Churchill once said that it was one of the most inspired songs that had ever been written.

In Australia you cannot go very far without catching up with the echo of it, and naturally enough, swagmen sing it on their walks. They will not accept a lift, but go everywhere on their feet and all of them carry their Waltzing Matilda with them.

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.”

CHORUS
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda,
You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled,
You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.