waltzing matilda

Subject: BS: waltzing matilda
From: BusbitterfraeScotland
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 04:02 AM

Hello there,

I've been wondering about this song, How can the Jolly Swagman be Jolly and yet at the end of the song he kills himself, I mean if anyone kills themseleves, they're not Jolly are they?
So the song is about a suicidal swagman who is Jolly.
The song just doesn't make sense does it.
I'm not worried about the song, I'm just courious about it that's all and I just hope that someone out there can explain it to me.
Tom
P.S.
The song Abigail which goes like:-
on the bosom of young Abigail
was written the price of her tail
and upon her behind for the use of the blind
was the same information in Braille.
Could some please tell what that song is all about
I have a far idea.
Tom
And this is not a joke

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 04:25 AM

He was jolly until he was caught stealing the sheep.
He chose to drown rather than hang.
Re Abigail, I'm sure your fair idea is correct.
Keith.

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: Gurney
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 04:31 AM

Pehaps the swagman wasn't jolly, perhaps he was gay. He was 'camping' by the billabong, after all.

This is a joke, honest, cobber.

Abigail sounds like the sort of lass who goes around with a mattress tied to her back in case she meets some-one she knows. Or doesn't know.

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 06:43 AM

contact Bob Bolton, he has a lot of info on the song & he would also know the Waltzing Matilda website.

He published Christina MacPherson's holograph copy of her tune & Banjo Paterson's original words in the Dec issue of Mulga Wire (Magazaine of the Bush Music Club, where he is Vice President & Editor & I'm Secretary). This page is in the National Library's collection & he gives a link to the library

www.nla.gov.au/ntwkpubs/gw/p20a01.1html

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: Dead Horse
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 06:51 AM

Waltzing Matilda is actually an ozzy filch of the old English folk song "Walking The Bulldog" and as all English folk songs had jolly people dying, lovers crying, and soldiers laughing as they went to their gruesome deaths, it is traditional, dammit!!!

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 07:03 AM

"Jolly" is just a filler, as in "jolly bad" (which would otherwise be verging on the oxymoronic). Think of all those bold or brisk men, or all those pretty fair women: useful clichés in a medium where, after all, repetition is a staple. Patterson was being colloquial, or consciously imitating a traditional or popular style. You'd expect something different from Keats or Shelley.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: fiddler
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 08:06 AM

Once a Jolly goblin went to the faerie the social club!
Two pints of best and some crisps said he
And...... Next line please and lets see about colloquialisms in that!

PS did anyone ever hear the BBC Radio 4 version of this at the Australian 200 years anniversary?

I wanted a copy but never go one!

A

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: mack/misophist
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 10:33 AM

One of the all time records in American baseball was set by a man named Smead Jolley. I have it on good authority that the swagman was his father. Or perhaps uncle.

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: GUEST,alinact
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 10:36 AM

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: GUEST,alinact
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 10:39 AM

What I meant to say was:

Oy - watch it Gurney!

Actually, I think Keith is correct; any self-respecting Aussie would do anything rather than be taken by the cops.

Allan

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: Mr Happy
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 11:14 AM

from The Ramblin Sid Rumpo Collection.

SONG OF THE AUSTRALIAN OUTLAW
(Words by Barry Took & Marty Feldman)

Once long ago in the shade of a goolie bush
Toasting his splod in the faggot's gleam
Rested a ganderman, a knobbling at his woggling iron
And stuffing a sheep in the old mill stream.

Then up come the troopers and hung him by the billabong
They twisted his woggling irons, 1-2-3
Now his ghost sits and moans as it grunges in his gander can
Who'll come a-woggling his jumbuck with me

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: Gurney
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 12:51 PM

Alinact... I'd love to watch it! What time do they start jumping in? Is it televised? Will it be ticket only?

Still joking, cobber. Chris in Enzed.

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 01:29 PM

Oh, sorry mate - Didn't realise you were KoneWone. Thought it was one of them poms trying to get a shot in cos' of their woeful cricket team.

Allan

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: gnomad
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 03:06 PM

This song contains one of my favourite pointless questions:

"Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?"

As to the jolliness question I think he was jolly to start with (as was the jumbuck) but his condition deteriorated.

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 18 Jan 03 - 05:34 AM

G'day all & sundry,

Of course, the problem is that BusbitterfraeScotland starts by reading two contrary texts - Paterson's poem starts:

Oh! There once was a swagman camped in a billabong ... nothing about being jolly. It is the Inglis Bros (Billy Tea) advertisement that renders him jolly ... after Paterson had sold the rights to the poem ... sort of like what happened to Tolkein, after the film morons get hold of his work. Of course the Billy Tea version, jolly &c doesn't say "drowning himself", but "You'll never take me alive" ... so all the following discussion is irrelevant.

There is an interesting deeper and more devious background to Paterson's poem and purposes - somewhere between the woolsheds and bedrooms of "Dagworth Station" ... you'll have to chase up a few links ... and, even then, you are not yet going to get the bits that the literary set would prefer were forgotten.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: Compton
Date: 18 Jan 03 - 08:46 AM

Don't Strawhead claim the song as "who'll be a soldier for Marlborough and Me?" etc.

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: Snuffy
Date: 18 Jan 03 - 10:07 AM

But there's no trace of "who'll be a soldier" until after Waltzing Matilda.

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 18 Jan 03 - 08:08 PM

G'day Compton,

Snuffy is right - there is no evidence of the Marlborough parody until WW I ... probably a defensive parody by you Poms after the Aussies sang Waltzing Matilda late into the night!

Any real existence of a Marlborough period song of that description would require that an English song was remembered by a dozen different informants in Australia, two centuries after it was popular ... but it had neer been heard by all the British collectors/anthologists of the 18th and 19th centuries ... ?!?

Interestingly, the first folk song known to have been swapped in Australia (by the European invaders, anyway) was about Marlborough! When La Perouse's French expedition sailed into Botany Bay. just days after the First Fleet's arrival, the officers fraternised ... and the only drinking song they had in common was Marlbrouck s'en va t'en guerre. Not only did the English and French officers sing it - but it is claimed that the the Botany Bay Aboriginals, in their canoes, could be heard singing the tunes, days after!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Jan 03 - 08:21 PM

Unless I'm very much mistaken The one about the Streets of Rochester and Marlbro was written by Pete Coe - a long long time after World War One or World War Two for that matter.

As I heard it, since the tune was English before it got transported to Australia, Pete thought it'd be fair enough to use it for an English song.

And the swaggie would probably have been on the run because he'd been involved in a shearers strike, was how I heard it, and the troopers woudn't have been after him just for the sheep he nicked.

And didn't Banjo Patterson rewrite the words for the Billy Tea company himself? A man's got to make a living. Jolly? Well if he'd said "bloody" for the swagman and the jambuck, which would have maybe been more natural, people would have objected.

Subject: RE: BS: waltzing matilda
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 18 Jan 03 - 09:14 PM

Not that this has anything with Patterson's rewrite: "We boiled the billy and made some tea...." 1839, from the OED 1987 supplement. Goes back well before Billy Tea. Some people think the word originated with the tea.
This came up in a thread on tea, 55170: Tea

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Bugsy
Date: 18 Jan 03 - 10:58 PM

gnomad,

I always thought it was -

"Whose is that jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?"

Cheers


Bugsy

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 18 Jan 03 - 11:55 PM

G'day,

Bugsy: That's right ... I should have mentioned that in the last post. The "jolly" jumbuck is another figment of the Marie Cowan/Billy Tea rewrite.

McGrath: Paterson didn't do the re-write ... he had sold the rights totally ... and, in later years, was strangely silent about the poem. Before the Christina McPherson holograph material came to light, this was used to discredit Paterson and suggest he didn't write the poem. It now appears that the skeleton in his closet was his pitch for Christina (which led to the break-up of his seven years engagement to Sarah Riley, an old schoolchum of Christina's. Interestingly, the McPherson ladies remembered Paterson as "a bit of a cad"!

The actual content of the poem may well include oblique references to Bob McPherson's involvement in the swaggy's death ...and the cover-up, in his capacity as local magistrate. This is conjecture but interesting conjecture, especially when we see later hostile references to the McPherson name in Paterson's poems.

The Pete Coe rehash used the opening phrase and chorus, collected from the descendants of WW I veterans ... and their assumptions of a nice, acceptable "English" origin for the song. In fact, it arises from the tune of Robert tannahill's Scottish poem Thou Bonnie Wood of Craigielea, heard by Christina the year before, back home in Warnambool, Victoria.

GuestQ: The Australian National Dictionary (a full OED treatment of Australian words) give the origin of billy as from the Scottish dialect billy-pot - then cites your quote, from 1839 in New Zealand. This is followed by an 1849 citation for Australia. This usage is a typical preservation of a dialect term in a an ex-colonial country.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 19 Jan 03 - 05:16 PM

The OED doesn't mention billy-pot or its possible Scottish dialect origin. It says "Origin uncertain, from Australian aboriginal billa, river, water [cf. billabong]". This from the 1987 supplement; I don't have the latest.

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: JennieG
Date: 19 Jan 03 - 06:10 PM

And of course we all know, don't we, that the swagman's name was Andrew.....Andy sang, Andy watched, Andy waited till his billy boiled......
Sorry about that Bob! *grin*
There was a humorous TV ad here a few years ago for one of those 'just add meat' dinners. It showed a bloke out in the bush, creek in the background, pot simmering over a fire, and he was cheerfully whistling as he added the contents of the dinner packet to the pot. The cops arrived in the four wheel drive, mentioned that the farmer down the road had lost a sheep and could he keep an eye out for it. Certainly, says the bloke, and as they left he held up the packet to catch the camera - 'just add lamb' for a stew.
Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 19 Jan 03 - 10:07 PM

G'day again GuestQ,

The Australian National Dictionary is 1988 - compiled and published by the Oxford English Dictionary team/ in conjunction with their Australian language team. Presumably they had picked up the fallacy of the attribution to the East Coast Aboriginal language in the earlier OED supplement by the normal lexicographic processes of studying the earliest recorded uses of the word in question.

A lot of romantic 'folk etymology' has tried to match words to Aboriginal languages - simply on coincidence of form and sound. With some 600 languages, before European invasion, you can find almost any word you want ... somewhere ... more or less. (And Australian dictionary compilers, in the 19th and early 20th centuries were by no means immune to 'romantic' notions of language. I really liked the attempt to equate the Wiradhuri word Keradgeree [- medicine man, healer] with the classical Greek kheirougos - surgeon!)

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Kaleea
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 02:41 AM

You might enjoy hearing the wildest guitar player on the planet in a rather mild (guitarwise) version of "Waltzing Matilda." When you get to the Tommy Emmanuel website, click on "waltzing matilda" to listen. While you're there, have a look around! Then make plans to get yourself to Winfield, Kansas in September to experience Tommy Live in Concert, where he explains the meaning of the song & terms, which was inspired by an actual incident, & is still sung lest anyone forget. Also, in a couple of weeks: Friday nite, January 31 in Wichita Kansas! (I hope the "clicky" works!

TE WEBSITE.......fixed it for you

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: JennyO
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 04:33 AM

Well the blue clickie wasn't, but I typed in the URL and listened anyway.

Sort of pleasant, isn't it, in a funky sort of way!

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 07:43 AM

I don't think anyone has ever suggested an English origin for the song have they? Either nice or nasty. That's not at all the same as pointing out that the tune had a prehistory back in Europe. It's such a good tune, I'd be very surprised if it hadn't been used in a few more songs before it turned up in Australia.

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: gnomad
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 08:03 AM

Bugsy: I'm happy to accept your correction as to what was original, the whole thread demonstrates a fairly chequered past for a relatively young song. However I can also assure you that the song has been (and maybe still is) taught to UK schoolchildren with the words I quoted. I guess it just shows that the folk process is alive and changing songs, whether for good or bad.

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: fiddler
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 08:33 AM

Heard on the Radio today the swagman was called Andy!

Andy sang Andy sat and waited till his billy boiled.

:-)


I can feel the brickbats from here!

Sorreeeee....

A

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: fiddler
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 08:37 AM

OOps missd that one on the thread mussed have scrolled up toom fast sincere and abject apologies to all for repetition and probably deviation.

A

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Schantieman
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 08:45 AM

At the risk of thread creep, did anyone hear Banjo Patterson (whose first name was Andy, or at least Andrew, by the way - maybe the sond was autobiographical)'s poem on 'Poetry Please' ?

(Is this post a contender for the 'highest ratio of parenthesis to main subject matter on the threads' award?)

Steve

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 09:06 AM

G'day again McGrath,

An "English" origin was indeed what was being sought ... and maintained ... until the historical trace to Thou Bonnie Wood o' Craigielea was indisputable.

I'm sure the tune was used for many songs other than Waltzing Matilda ... tunes that were originally settings of Tannahill's poems abound in national / quasi-national songs ... Wearing of the Green and Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go - just to look across the Irish Sea! (There was also a Newfoundland example on MudCat recently ...)

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 09:19 AM

You mean sort of:

Once a merry ploughboy sat beside a running stream
under the shade of the old oak tree
And he sang as he sat and poured some cider in his mug,
"Who'll come a dancing with Nancy and me."
Dancing with Nancy
Dancing with Nancy
Who'll come a dancing with Nancy and me.
And he sang as he sat and poured some cider in his mug,
who'll come a dancing with Nancy and me.

Up came a rabbit to drink at that running stream,
Up jumped the ploughboy and seized him with glee,
"What a bonny bunny to hide there in my poaching bag,
You'll come a dancing with Nancy and me."

Up came the squire mounted on his thoroughbred...

Naah, it would lack something.

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 03:04 AM

G'day again, McGrath,

... Well ... it's on a par with some of the other dodgy contenders ... and not much less ancient!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 05:44 AM

Pete Coe told me (and others) in the early 70s that "Marlborough" was written entirely by him except for a "fragment" that he based the rest on. Barrie Roberts mischievously recorded it for an archive in the Netherlands, telling them it was traditional. So Pete, now you know who to sue for those lost royalties!

Steve

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: jimlad
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 06:04 AM

What about the story told in these parts that at the 1924
Olympics in France an Ozzie girl smashed all High Jump records with a leap of 12ft 2ins this young lady Hilda Smith of Mudgee claimed her success was due to a special take-off mat she used.So she has gone down in Australian history(Doesn't take long to study,does it?)
as "Vaulting Matilda".

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 06:22 AM

G'day jimlad,

That story was, of course, re vaulting!

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: GUEST,jimlad
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 12:31 PM

Bugger Off!! Bob

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: GUEST,Jocknows!
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 01:44 PM

I thought at least some of the Australians might know the correct words, but apparently not.   Take it from a Scotsman this is the correct version, learned when I was a youngster (well over half a century ago!)-

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coulibah tree
And he sang as he sat and waited while his billy boiled
"Who'll come a waltzin' matilda with me?"

Down came a jumbuck to drink by the billabong
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed it with glee
"You're a jolly jumbuck, you'll go in my tucker-bag
you'll come a waltzin' matilda with me".

Up rode a squatter mounted on his thoroughbred
Up rode the troopers, one, two, three.
"Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker-bag
You'll come a waltzin' matilda with me".

Up jumped the swagman, leapt into the billabong
"You'll never take me alive!" said he.
And his ghost may be heard when you pass by the billabong,
"Who'll come a waltzin' matilda with me?"

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Amos
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 02:00 PM

Jeeze, Jock, yer being a bit assertive, I'd hazard! :D

I guess the "Theory of Folksong Relativity" hasn't reached yer neck of the woods yet...


A

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 04:38 PM

Hmmm- just looked at the A. B. Patterson poem. I guess he and all others who wrote and followed with various changes, weren't aware of the one true, original and incomparable 'correct' version.

Oh, well, them Aussies cain't be trusted with the English language.

Australia's on the wallaby
Oh listen to the cooey,
The kangaroo he packs his port
And the emu shoulders bluey,
The curlew sings his lonely tune
Beside the long lagoon,
And the brolga does his last-lay dance
To the lyrebirds mocking tune.

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 06:51 PM

G'day Q,

Well ... at least most of us can spell Paterson as 'Banjo' did!

Incidentally, you don't need to go too far into the works of Paterson's contemporary, Henry Lawson, to notice that Henry was either aware of ... or inspired ... the verses you quote.

It's also worth noting that these did not appear, in print, until after 'Banjo' Paterson's poem - attached to Christina McPherson's recollection/arrangement/quotation from the Craigielea tune had popularised the local (south-east Queensland) expression "walting Matilda" for carrying a swag.

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 07:21 PM

G'day.
Australia's on the Wallaby just seemed apt after seeing the one true W. M. The verse is from Ron Edward's book, and he says it is from Mr Clarence McAulay of Coolgarra, N. Q. (older and published elsewhere, but I haven't looked it up. I think it has been posted in Mudcat.

Sorry about the two t's, that name group seems to have members who spell it with one 't' and others who use two. I can never remember.

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 31 Mar 08 - 08:15 PM

G'day again Q,

I'm at work, and don't have the books to hand, but there are strong parallels between the 'folk' verses Australia's on the Wallaby and Henry Lawson's poem, from the later stages of the Shearer's Strike, Freedom's on the Wallaby. Henry's verses were published in a Union newspaper ... and vitriolically denounced in the Queensland Parliament (representing the Government / large pastoralist viewpoint).

Of course, these particular verses use a number of local expression for carrying a swag (the common practice of itinerant workers to carry their belonging rolled in a blanket, on their back, as they tramped between possible jobs) but don't use Paterson's phrase "waltzing Matilda", which seems to have been a local expression in the south-east of Queensland - possibly coming directly from the German expressions of those Germanic political / economic refugees from Bismarck's recent "Unification" of the independent states and principalities of Germany.

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 03:57 AM

Where can I get a translation of Wltzing Mtilda into Australian Aboroginal?

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 04:12 AM

Guest without a name asked -

Where can I get a translation of Wltzing Mtilda into Australian Aboroginal?

Guest - there is no "Australian Aboriginal" we have hundreds of Aboriginal languages, tho. are many only spoken by a few people.

Perhaps is you specify which one you want someone might be able to help you.

If you return to this thread & find your post gone, please ask again using a name so it doesn't get deleted (again) by the Moderators.

sandra

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Rowan
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 04:25 AM

Following Sandra's post, many of us are quite tired of hearing people say things like "XXXX is the Aboriginal word for YYYY", given that there were at least 500 different Aboriginal language groups in Australia and that at least 250 are still extant.

It's a bit like saying "Table is the European word for that thing you sit at to eat your meals." The French and English might be happy with such a statement but the Spanish, Portuguese and Hungarians might feel disregarded. And before anyone posts "Oh, but aren't they just dialects?" most are as different from each other as Swedish is from Greek.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 12:51 AM

I'm also searching for an Aboriginal version of it. It does exist as I heard it performed at the National Folk Festival - maybe 2003 ish - in Canberra by a band of Aboriginal singers from the NT I think. There were 3 sisters, it was a mix of English and Aboriginal ( a kind of 'pidgin English)It was fantastic. Can anyone help? - cheers
Lyn

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: GUEST,Ancient Tom
Date: 11 Sep 11 - 10:09 AM

For GUEST who was after an Aboriginal version of Waltzing Matilda. The song is in Kriol. It was written by Valentine McGuinness and the singers were almost certainly the Mills sisters. Try this link http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/03/19/2851261.htm?site=darwin.

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 16 Sep 11 - 02:24 PM

Bu%%@r the words - can anyone explain why a song called "Waltzing" Matilda should have been written in 4:4 time?!

Subject: RE: waltzing matilda
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 18 Sep 11 - 06:08 PM

G'day Ray,

... Because it has nothing to do with a dance ... in 3/4 - or any other time signature! The expression ... here, in 19th century Australia ... comes from the German tradesman's time spent auf der walz ... "on the wander" for a number of years before advancing (on the strength of the experience gained over those years) towards "Master" status.

In this song, Paterson is putting the 'hard word' on Christina to go 'wandering' about Australia with him (despite the fact that he has been ... by that time ... engaged to one of her old school chums for seven years!

Regard(les)s,

Bob