Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Young Buchan
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 11:50 AM

Apart from giving good advice, she doesn't do a lot; but nevertheless half of Farewell to Greta is sung by Kate Kelly

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Sam O
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 07:55 AM

Thanks sabsab, wish I could help you with the book.

Thanks for the suggestions, mg.

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: mg
Date: 12 May 10 - 12:27 AM

I just pulled out an old Priscilla Herdman CD..boy is she great.

She has two..When the children come home..Henry Lawson and Lambing to the Wool by Judy Small. I personally love the one that goes Jack's dog thank God it's Jack I never thought I'd faint before he's coming down the track...she sings on another CD. I forget the name. There is also the Drover's sweetheart but I don't think that is it. mg

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: GUEST,sabsab
Date: 11 May 10 - 11:54 PM

and it was a hard cover and light blue it that helps identify it.

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: GUEST,sabsab
Date: 11 May 10 - 11:51 PM

just wondering if anyone is familiar with a book of poetry by female convicts arriving in australia. would have been published 19?? if not 18??
can't remember the name of it.

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 05 May 10 - 09:02 AM

Sam O, the one in Eastwood.

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: GUEST,CAP
Date: 05 May 10 - 05:00 AM

You will find "Little Birds" on Mundy-Turner's My Space & if you contact them on their web site mundy-turner.com I am sure Cath or Jay would give you any imformation you would like & may even have some more songs suitable for your project.

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Sam O
Date: 05 May 10 - 04:03 AM

Bob, sorry, I meant to type Trish instead of Gail when referring to the CD!

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Sam O
Date: 05 May 10 - 04:01 AM

Thanks Bob,

sorry I wasn't there on Monday night. I'd be interested in having a chat to Gail about her project and possibly have a listen to the CD you received from Gail.

Rowan,

thanks for providing the lyrics.

Gerry,

Which one of our LW concerts did you come to? Hope you enjoyed it, you have to come introduce yourself the next time you come along!

Sandra, too true!

Thanks Cap for your song suggestion. I'll have to track it down and have a listen and would be interesting to learn more about it.

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: GUEST,CAP
Date: 04 May 10 - 04:00 AM

Little Birds (Mundy-Turner)

A song writen by them after Jay Turner read an article entitled "The Women Who Have Learned Not To Cry"
It is about Women who have to let new babies die through lack of money, food & help in the outback North-Eastern Brazil.
You can find the track on their High Life album as well as a live recording on Wholly Road.(this tells you the reason for the writting of the song as well).

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 May 10 - 03:03 AM

life made those damned whores old before their time!

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 03 May 10 - 11:59 PM

Bob, that's a bunch of *damned* whores, no? It's included in Loosely Woven's current production, All Around My Hat.

Subject: ADD: Girls In Our Town (Bob Hudson)
From: Rowan
Date: 03 May 10 - 07:21 PM

Just for the record:

GIRLS IN OUR TOWN
(Bob Hudson)

Girls in our town they just haven't a care
See them on Saturday floating on air
Painting their toenails and washing their hair
Maybe tonight it'll happen.

Girls in our town leave school at fifteen
Work at a counter or behind a machine
Spend all their money on making the scene
And plan on going to England.

Girls in our town go to parties in pairs,
Sit round the barbeque, give themselves airs.
Go to the bathroom with a girlfriend who cares.
Girls in our town are so lonely.

Girls in our town are too good for the pill
But if you keep asking they probably will,
Perhaps they like you or just for the thrill,
And explain it away in the morning.

Girls in our town get no help from their men
No-one will let them be sixteen again
Things could get better but its hard to say when
If they only had someone to talk to.

Girls in our town can be saucy and bold
At seventeen, no-one is nicer to hold,
Then they start having kids and they start growing old,
Girls in our town, girls in our town.

As sung by Phil Lobl, although it was 'more famously' recorded, earlier, by Margret Roadknight. From memory (although Bob B. probably has accurate details) it was written early in the 70s.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 03 May 10 - 07:00 PM

Oop! More of my usual esprit de l'escalier ...

Sam ... you weren't along to the Monday Night Session, so you missed out on comparing notes with Gail Copley, a new sessioneer, who is working up a project around the (Parramatta) Female Factory - the women convicts' workhouse / accommodation.

This resonates with a CD I just received from my old friend (and fellow-ex member of Selectors Bush Band) Trish Laine: "Goode Women Doin' Time" ... based on Trish's interpretation work at the Hobart Female Factory. There are some good new songs there ... even if I think there's too much overlaid accompaniment and too little of Trish's great singing! Back before Trish & Jon moved to Tasmania, in the 1980s, Trish's rendition of The Convict Maid was always a knockout in our performances!

Another line on the female convict part of the story is found in several good songs by Ted Egan (and his partner, Neris) ... including that great 'anthem' of resistance to the overbearing male authority of Crown, Church and Army: A Bunch of Old Whores ... dealt with in a recent Mudcat thread. I need to dig out my large stack of Ted's CDs and see what else suits.

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 03 May 10 - 06:23 PM

G'day Sam, Sandra & Rowan,

I didn't have the words in "Song" file ... but I do now!

I listened through Margret RoadKnight's version on my copy of her CD The Collection '75 - '85 ... and, bar a word or two, that's the same as I used to sing it. Your link to Phyl Lobl's On My Selection is exactly the same ... so I guess that any slight variation in my rendition is a small example of "folk process"!

I don't have the dots down ... I always sang it unaccompanied ... but I can get them down - unless you just learn it from Sandra's link to Margret's site!

Have a look at the copy of my Sally Sloane Booklet that is on its way to you. You will see how few of the songs ... even when picked out by a group looking for good 'women's songs' ... are not rather blokey!

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 May 10 - 07:01 AM

I'm listening to the track on Phyl's album 'Bronzewing' - a compilation of her 3 earliest records. It's been a long time since I've heard this song (oops, but I do have over 600 CDs)

note to this track, originally recorded 1977 -
Another song inspired by life in Newcastle but reminiscent to me of attitudes in the country towns where I have lived.

Newcastle is one of the largest urban centres in Australia, about 100 miles north of Sydney.

Phyl is a superb songwriter & I couldn't imagine her changing the words of someone else's songs, especially on a record where "The aim of this disk was to demonstrate that fact that songs reflecting the Australian experience were being written and that folk-performers would do well to look for material in their own backyard (on their own 'Selection') to assist the development of writers and material. It was intended to demonstrate that beginnings in British and American cultures along with influences of the Bush Tradition could be woven into a poetic and musical fabric of our own. It was a case of showcasing the songs NOT the singer."

sandra

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Sam O
Date: 03 May 10 - 05:56 AM

Thanks Ronan, Bob & Sandra.

I found the lyrics and a recording on Phyl Lobl's site.

Is this the version that most people are familiar with?

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 May 10 - 02:46 AM

I was pondering upon contacting Margret for the words, but as I don't have her address, I'd need to contact a mutual friend or find her website.

Margret singing "Girls in our Town" on her homepage!! - well, one verse.

But it would be faster for Bob to find & post the words.

sandra

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 03 May 10 - 01:27 AM

G'day Rowan,

Girls in our town is one of my favourite "folk revival" songs ... and I used to sing it often. I don't seem to have the words on my portable drive ... but I'll post them tomorrow, if someone else hasn't done so by then.

Ah ... Bob Hudson did some great writing ... before going off to become: (~) The Australian Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellow in Archeological Computation, at Sydney Uni ...!

(Now visiting Fellow.)

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Rowan
Date: 27 Apr 10 - 07:09 PM

While not specifically a song about women in 'the bush', "Girls in our town" by Bob Hudson (but made famous by Margret Roadknight's singing and recording of it) is one I associate with small (and thus, rural) towns in Oz.

The words aren't in the DT (and the only references to it appear to have been posted by me, which is surprising, given the Oz women I know in Mudcat and, unfortunately, I don't have the words in my own collection. SIgh!

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Sam O
Date: 27 Apr 10 - 05:29 AM

Thanks all for your suggestions so far. I've started making a list of them. If anyone else has further suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated.

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: freda underhill
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 10:50 AM

Music Australia link to 'Matilda Survives' recordings 1980

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: freda underhill
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 10:20 AM

try looking up
Sally Sloane

and also check out Chloe Roweth singing Lovely Nancy on Jason and Chloe's latest CD, "A Voice That Was Still". It received the Australian National Film and Sound Archive Best Folk Recording Award at the 2010 National Folk Festival. They have produced numerous CDs which include songs of women of the bush.

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Rowan
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 11:18 PM

For a US, rather than Oz, English speaker, who is also a Dirty Old Man and proud of it, the possibilities of this thread are so tremendous that I'm paralyzed - I don't know where to begin.

Well, midchuck, you could try Peter's luck with The maids of Australia

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: mg
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 11:06 PM

Judy Small has one or perhaps several. mg

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Tangledwood
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 06:27 PM

"Sheepskin Creek" written by Anne Infante, performed on Cloudstreet's new CD "Circus of Desires".

Subject: RE: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: Midchuck
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 04:59 PM

For a US, rather than Oz, English speaker, who is also a Dirty Old Man and proud of it, the possibilities of this thread are so tremendous that I'm paralyzed - I don't know where to begin.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Songs or Poems re Women of the Bush
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 08:41 AM

John Warner has written some beauties; Kitty Kane, Dear Diary, Miner's Washing.

Henry Lawson had a few; When the children come home, The water-lily, The drover's sweetheart, Past carin'.

Subject: Folklore: Songs or Poems re Women
From: Sam O
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 05:49 AM

I am looking for australian songs or poems that are about women or are sung/recited from a female perspective.

It can be songs/poems about any number of things, e.g. how women lived their lives, women of the bush, songs of love lost/discovered, women in the depression years etc.

Appreciate any help.