G'day Sandra,

The missing word from the first line of the first version's chorus is, of course, " ... boys," - I must have failed to include the end of the inset chorus when I OCR scanned these versions. (It was getting rather late, after my Monday Night Music Session!)

Most of the modern versions we hear are based on Lloyd's 1950s reworks of the written texts. Lloyd never "collected" any songs in Australia ... he certainly heard traditional singing as a lad, during his stay hear as a sort of junior, latter-day, "Colonial experience man" - and did write down some words to help learn songs - but it was some decades before he became a conscious "collector" and folklorist.

His great contribution was the popularisation of Australian traditional songs drawing on his memories, the work of the 1950s Australian collectors (as copied on to the EFDSS) and the first major publications of the 1950s revival ... especially Stewart & Keesing's revised Old Bush Songs.

It is always nice to hear someone doing something different from the "standard" versions of a popular song. Gerry Hallom's version (which does neatly trim the song down to a manageable length for moder audiences) impressed my greatly when I came across it on his 1980s LP ... and I still like that one!.

Regards,

Bob Bolton