It's interesting to me how influential the "Laurie/Doerflinger-Lloyd/Howard" tune (and some verses) has been over the last 50+ years. I did a quick cruise through the fifty options on I-Tunes for "South Australia" and I think that every one of them uses this tune. The variations tend to be in speed and accompaniment choices. It was almost possible for me keep moving down the list and not miss a beat! It is a rousing good song in this version, but it's curious to me that the modern shanty culture has not been more varied in its approach to this song. Why hasn't the "other" tune strain been tried, to say nothing of the words offered by Smith and Harlow? I'm not saying that the I-Tunes list is exhaustive, and there may well be many versions out there that I haven't heard. I would be interested in what they might be and who did them.

One of the aspects of trying to re-imagine what was happening in the 1850's is to try to get as "true" a version as possible. In this case I mean "true to the time and place" of either SF or Sydney in the middle of the 19th century. It has been a steady learning experience for me to discover and separate out what I would call contemporary shanty culture interpretations from what might have been more "true" earlier on. In other words I seriously doubt that anybody was singing the "South Australia" version we know and love back then. They may have been singing Harlow's version in the 1870's and perhaps Laura Smith's version as well. But maybe not the "L/D-L/H" version.

I recognize that my idea of "true" is full of potential headaches and I mean it to be taken lightly, please. And I like Gibb's "truck-driving" version of this song (although I can't quite tell if he's in a truck or not.) Here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/hultonclint#p/c/58B55DD66F22060C/100/s65rUw-Z2Og