G'day again,

Helen,

This just occurred to me ... We talk about "folksongs", but we need to remeber the effect of American popular music of the day. Henty Clay Work, who wrote Marching Through Georgia, was essentially a popular song writer - widely published and sung.

He also wrote The Ship That Never Returned - a song parodied in at least one Australian song The Hardy Bushman about a timber cutter blowing his cheque at the pub, and of course, Ring the Bell Watchman, the model for our national 'potboiler' Click Go The Shears. Many other American writers of popular song are represented by Australian 'parodies' ... songs using established models but adapted to new places and facts.

Regards,

Bob Bolton