G'day again,

These are the words for SUDA BAY (WW II version of for Suvla Bay). The song comes (at least) from WW I ... Suvla Bay was in the Gallipoli landing area (1915). Suda Bay was a battle of WW II). I have known this from the early '70s but this version is from: The Second Penguin Australian Song Book, Compiled by Bill Scott, Penguin Books, Australia, 1980. I have reproduce Bill's full comments after the song text.

The tune is a typicall "weepy waltz" of the late 19th / early 20th century style and I presume, from the number of people that know it, that it had been published before being banned ... or at least discouraged. If anyone is interested, I could post a MIDIText file of the tune ... or email a GIF image of the page in Bill's book (since it is out of print.

In an old Australian homestead with the roses round the door,
A girl received a letter, just newly from the war.
With her mother's arms around her she gave way to sobs and sighs
For when she read that letter, the tears came to her eyes.
Chorus
Why do I weep? Why do I sigh?
My love's asleep so far away.
He played his part that August day
And left my heart in Suda Bay.

She joined a band of nurses beneath the cross of red
And swore to do her duty to the soldier who lay dead.
Many soldiers came to woo her but were sadly turned away
As to them she told the story of the grave at Suda Bay.

I first heard this song from a Royal Navy man in the wet canteen at the Small Craft Base at Colmslie in Brisbane during 1944, and included the words in a previous book. I commented there that I had never heard the song again. Since the publication of that book, several people have told me that they know or have heard the song, including my own mother. I suspect that it was a popular or folk song from the First World War which survived and regained currency during the Second World War. Suvla Bay was one of the beaches at Gallipoli where the ANZAC forces landed on 25 April 1915 and Suda Bay was a scene of action in Crete during the Second World War.

Bill Scott's comments:
I have read comments by both John Manifold and John Meredith about so-called 'treason songs'. Both collectors were told by certain informants that some songs, especially some about bushrangers, were forbidden to be sung in public. Included in this category were, for instance, 'Bold Jack Donohue', 'The Wild Colonial Boy', and 'The Ballad of the Catalpa' also some of the songs about the Kelly gang. 'Suda Bay' is the only song I have ever collected where a number of people have told me, 'You can get arrested for singing that song'.

Whatever the history of the song, I find it both plaintive and musical, and the words certainly echo popular sentiment from the war years.

Regards,

Bob Bolton