advance australia fair-ly backwards

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: DaveA
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 06:49 AM

I remember back in the eighties when Malcolm Fraser & his treasurer little Johnnie were thrown out hearing Eric Bogle lamenting at the Troubadour that he was torn two ways - at last the bastards were gone but he had lost one third of his repertoire of political songs. (There was a beaut under the title of "Batman & Boy Blunder"

If only we could be rid of him now for such a price - Eric has many more good songs still to be written that he could afford to sacrifice his current play list!!

Dave

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: 12string growler
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 02:03 PM

If you think AAF is naff, you should try the Japanese national anthem. You'll hear it quite regularly down at the race track on Phillip Island. It is only slightly more boring than God Save the Monarch that I have to listen to rather infrequently. I still can#t understand why some folks suggest a song with the title "JERUSALEM" should replace it though.

Chris, native and resident in blighty. And I never did like cricket.

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: JennyO
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 12:04 PM

a link to the Sensitive New Age Cowpersons' website, where you can at least listen to an MP3 of part of "The New Australian National Anthem".

Here are some of the words:

Waltzing Matilda, in there and fight
With Skippy the bush kangaroo.
Skippy - true blue
God save our queen.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Skippy the bush kangaroo.

We are one, but we are many,
That's how good neighbours become good friends.


Anyone remember more?

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: Albaman
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 06:27 AM

Appearing at Celtic sessions weekly in OZ for the last four years, and at many aussie folk festivals, I have yet to hear the OZ national anthem played or sang there. If I had my way I would change it to a song written by Eric Bogle (ex patriot scot)called "Shelter" Brilliant song that I like to sing frequently at our sessions.

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: rich-joy
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 05:35 AM

Jeez, THAT many of the buggers, Stew!! Sandgropers are really on the move, then! - I believe we West Australians have TRIED to sucede at least 3 times in Australia's relatively short Union-of-Britstock history!!! But perhaps we missed our best chance when Iron Ore was King ...



Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: Stewie
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 11:10 PM

Hi R-J, we had the Western Australian contingent - and there was a cricket team of them - at the last Top Half lead the audience in 'More Beer' at the end of the Sunday night concert as an apologetic gesture for their state's attempt to secede. We had no complaints about having fun with the national athem, but a couple of delicate souls complained about our being frivilous in respect of apologies.

Regards, Stewie.

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 09:04 PM

I'd recommend the Sensitive New Age Cowpersons' rewrite,
if I could but find a link to it.

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: hilda fish
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 08:42 PM

I was always very proud of my fellow ozzers in regard to Advance etc. because in any crowd I was in we would all just sort of kerfuffle and hum the tune but roar out "Ardva-a-a-a-nce Or-or-or-or-st-rahl f-----air" because that's all we knew. Someone usually roared (an ozzie) "chuck it to me" in the middle of it while holding the football catch position. It was great in countries foreign when the Americans did theirs with hands on hearts and tears in eyes and knew every single bloody word, then the Brits would do a very dignified version of "God Save..." and the French a stirring "Allons enfants de...." and then we Ozzies would kerfuffle and mumble except for that vital tital which would be roared. Oh, lackadaisical and unpatriotic us!!! Then the Olympics came to Sydney and EVERYONE learnt the whole bloody thing. What's the point I say? We don't need the words - we need the mumbles and grunts. We NEED another song now, just as asinine, so we can continue the mumbles and grunts. It's not, in my opinion, good for the National Character to have a learnable or sensible anthem. Keep it anarchic I say.

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: John O'L
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 08:37 PM

- The legendary lost verse.

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 08:00 PM

When violent crooks from Albion sailed in manacles and chains
True Irish courage helped them bear the hardships and the pains
And when their seven years were done of penal servitude
They were set loose to reproduce and raise their drunken broods
That's why today Aw-stray-lie-ay is full of blokes like you

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: rich-joy
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 07:26 PM

Paul - they don't want you "mucking about" with ANY of it - metre, tune, OR words!!!

Foolstroupe - I was known a "giggling gertie" as a kid - and I lived by the sea in Darwin - and you've MET me - so do I qualify???!!!

Also, I forgot that Noel Gardner & Mark Gillett also sing a good parody of "AAF" in harmony - not entirely "pro" that Mr Howard, shall we say ...


Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 07:15 PM

If only we could change the one in charge of our country so easily...

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: Helen
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 06:39 PM

I agree, John. The main thing we need to do is change the title: remove one "s" and add one "r".

Helen

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: John O'L
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 06:19 PM

If John Howard and Mark Geyer are against it then it has to be a good idea.

Helen -
I've often thought that "I'm an Arsehole" would require very few changes to become as Australian as it is now American.

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 06:19 PM

I've never met 'Gert who lives by the sea'...

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: Helen
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 06:03 PM

It's unsingable by the general public because of the range. The words are too hard to remember because they are so trite and irrelevant. If they weren't written by a teary, soppy little old lady then they should have been.

I remember about 40 years ago having to learn this obscure and quaint song out of a mouldy old songbook at school. We had a shot at it and then forgot about it, thank God! But then someone went and dug the songbook up again out of the midden heap, brushed off the slaters and the mould, and what do we get - politicians who know nothing about music telling us we have to sing it at public occasions.

Why don't the pollies just bite the bullet and commission someone to write patriotic words to the tune of Waltzing Matilda. Solves everything, then. The rest of the world knows the tune, and so does everyone in Australia. In time people would stop rabbiting on about a national song celebrating sheep stealing.   :-)

(Just a thought, what we need is a down-to-earth, realistic song about Aussies, á la Dennis Leary's "I'm an Asshole". Sorry, just my weird sense of humour.)

Helen

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 08:51 AM

or Duncan's song, which I thought was on unionsongs, but I can't find it there.

it's too much to type up, so here's a snippet

Advice Australia Fare by Duncan Chalmers
To the tune of our recent National Anthem

Australians all let us rejoice,
For Johnny kept us free;
He's sent us all our fridge magnets,
Our home security;
A booklet for our well content
To show how much he cares;
Osama's mates will leave our gates
Advice Australia fare!
In joyful strains then let us all sing,
"Advice Australia fare!"

well, no-one ever sings more than one verse.

sandra

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: JennyO
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 08:03 AM

Aw, does that mean we can't sing it to the tune of Gilligan's Island any more? :-(

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: Paul Burke
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 07:36 AM

Do they mean the tune, or the words, or both? It would be interesting to see if the legislation covers singing a parody of AAF, or the right words to a different tune, like Teddy Bears' Picnic or Tararaboomdeay.

Or if they cover all that, how about doing a Kippers style job on it.. you know, with the Kippers' songs, both the tune and the words are different, but you can tell what is being taken off, and few people have had the gall to sing Wild Mountain Thyme or Dido bendigo since.

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: GUEST,wherriebob
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 07:08 AM

And here's fuel to the fire;-)
http://heritage.scotsman.com/people.cfm?id=1962602005

Subject: RE: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: rich-joy
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 06:18 AM

Struth Doreen!
I've just realised too, that if Bruce Ruxton and Co have their way, we will be denied such joys as Campbell the Swaggie, leading the festival session congregations, with his rousing heart-felt anthem called "More Beer"*** Jeez!!!
It's VERY stirring stuff - an' I don't even like beer :~))


Cheers! R-J


***(if you want the lyrics, just sing those two words to the whole "AAF" tune - it's a bloody PERFECT fit, mate!!!)

Subject: advance australia fair-ly backwards
From: rich-joy
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 06:01 AM

Apologies if this topic has already been covered, but I've been "away" - and I didn't find it on a first search!

It seems the Wowsers are at it again (well, I guess having Little Johnny in power for so long was BOUND to encourage them) :
there are calls, spear-headed by the RSL of course (Returned Servicemen's League), to make it unlawful/illegal to perform Australia's National Anthem "Advance Australia Fair" in other than a stately, measured manner.

Here are just a few of the references :

(this is me fave)
http://www.smh.com.au/news/julia-baird/wowsers-cruel-the-wow-factor/2004/12/17/1102787272880.html

an excerpt from the Sydney Morning Herald
WOWSERS CRUEL THE WOW! FACTOR by Julia Baird :

...We love to think of ourselves as a laidback, laconic, irreverent nation, until someone mucks about with our national song. Then the wowsers, the straiteners come out to play, frothed into a frenzy. They conflate nationalism with conformity and monoculturalism, with pomposity and gravity. As though to be proud of your country you need to be poker-faced, hand-on-chest, listening to identical renditions of a fairly mediocre tune we are only fond of because it is our anthem.

A wonderfully crafted letter came from Cathy Bannister in the ACT: "In every suburb, from out of dark corners, blanket boxes, dresser drawers and closets, shaking off mothballs and smelling slightly damp, Australia's defenders of the national anthem are stirring. Lo, for here come the Naphthalene Avengers, the hills echoing with their distinctive, hoarse, grunting cry, the sky dark with upraised bony knuckles. What a sight."
Beautifully put ...."


also checkout :
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1462320.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/stories/s459751.htm

and so it goes on ...




Cheers! R-J