Lyr/Tune Add: Humping Old Bluey

Subject: Lyr/Tune Add: HUMPING OLD BLUEY
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 04:50 AM

G'day,

After chasing a few songs to find one sought by John in Brisbane, we settled on another ... but this one had surfaced from my memory - and it's a nice condensed summation of the (mostly) hard times of a working swagman, in this case a shearer who usually walks across the outback looking for a shearing job.

Ron Mantan was 70 when he sang this, back around 1955 ... and he learned the song when he was 7! It has been worn down from a longer poem called The Poor Bushman. The simple waltz tune turns up in other ballads in Australia.

First published in Singabout, Vol 3, #3,The Bush Music Club, Sydney, NSW, Australia. (Also in Singabout - Selected Reprints, (ed.) Bob Bolton, Bush Music Club, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 1985, p.52.)


HUMPING OLD BLUEY
(From Ron Mantan, Erskineville, NSW, Australia)

Humping old bluey; it is a stale game,
And that I can plainly see.
You're battling with poverty, hunger, sharp thorn,
Things are just going middling with me.

Now shearing's all over, and I'm such a swell ...
I'm riding a very fine hack.
If my friends were to see me - I'm not humping bluey,
I'm pushing a bit further back.

Humping your drum, and that after rum -
Wasting your young life away;
You're battling with poverty, hunger, sharp thorn,
Things are just going middling with me.

This is the tune in Alan of Aus's "No Longer Supported by Mudcat" MIDIText app. At least, you can extract the ABC notation from the end and convert that with any number of freeware sites and apps ... if you can't make MIDIText work!

Regards,

Bob

MIDI file: humping.mid

Timebase: 240

TimeSig: 3/4 24 8

Tempo: 128 (468750 microsec/crotchet)

Start

0480 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 65 080 0192 0 65 064 0048 1 65 080 0192 0 65 064 0048 1 65 080 0192 0 65 064 0048 1 69 080 0384 0 69 064 0096 1 69 080 0192 0 69 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 65 080 0192 0 65 064 0048 1 62 080 0192 0 62 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 65 080 0192 0 65 064 0048 1 64 080 0912 0 64 064 0288 1 67 080 0216 0 67 064 0024 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 64 080 0192 0 64 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 65 080 0192 0 65 064 0048 1 65 080 0192 0 65 064 0048 1 65 080 0192 0 65 064 0048 1 69 080 0384 0 69 064 0096 1 69 080 0096 0 69 064 0024 1 69 080 0096 0 69 064 0024 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 71 080 0192 0 71 064 0048 1 69 080 0192 0 69 064 0048 1 67 080 0192 0 67 064 0048 1 65 080 0192 0 65 064 0048 1 62 080 0192 0 62 064 0048 1 60 080 0912 0 60 064

End

This program is worth the effort of learning it.

To download the March 10 MIDItext 98 software and get instructions on how to use it click here

ABC format:

X:1

T:

M:3/4

Q:1/4=128

K:C

G6|E2E2E2|G2G2G2|F2F2F2|A4A2|G2G2F2|D2G2F2|

E6|-E4G2|E2E2E2|G2G2G2|F2F2F2|A4AA|G2B2A2|

G2F2D2|C6|-C3/2||

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Humping Old Bluey - Australian Swaggie
From: Celtaddict
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 09:14 PM

Mudcat does this again. It is positively uncanny. I had never to my knowledge heard this song before this morning on the way to work, on an archival set of field recordings, and here it is.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Humping Old Bluey - Australian Swaggie
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 09:54 PM

G'day Celtaddict,

What was the "... archival set of field recordings ..." - an Australian set, or a mixed, international, one?

(I always curious about how the songs get about the modern world ... and I'm guessing that you are US-based.)

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Humping Old Bluey - Australian Swaggie
From: GUEST,celtaddict at work
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 01:44 PM

I am in Connecticut, have only been privileged to visit Australia once so far, but have pumped your brain more than once, Bob.
The set is two CDs, called "Sharing the Harvest" and is field recordings from the Meredith collection. There are about 50 tracks per CD because many of the singers give just a verse or two of a version, and they are no-frills presentations; often there are several different versions, including "Black Velvet Band" and "Wild Colonial Boy" both of which are ubiquitous in the Irish pub repertoire here, but these versions are quite interesting and appealing. It also contains a song I asked you about a few years ago, "Take Me Down to the Harbor" though without a particular verse that stuck in my mind. That one sounded to me as if it had 'music hall' stamped all over it, and the verse that gave us a grin included the lines "we'll go to the beach and take off our clothes and then we'll see who's Manly."
Still no "When you're stony broke and walking" yet, though.

My Australian traditional song accumulation is progressing. What else should I be looking for?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Humping Old Bluey - Australian Swaggie
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 02:33 PM

"Humping Old Bluey" also printed in Meridith and Anderson, "Folk Songs of Australia, p. 125 with music, from Ron Manton.
Last line in the book- Things are just going middling, I say.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Humping Old Bluey - Australian Swaggie
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 05:15 PM

G'day again,

Celtaddict: "When you're stony broke and walking" - that was another snippet I associate with Graham Seal, back in his Steam Shuttle days. I'm afraid Graham couldn't remember a source, or more details ... and a query in The Australian Journal of Folklore didn't get any joy, either (but it is still nagging away, in far recess of my brain ...).

Interestingly, Take Me Down to the Harbour came up in my reply to a local researcher looking for musical material to accompany a ferry trip round Sydney Harbour ... with appropriate 'sound bites' to illuminate the historical points. Ina Popplewell's version was her memory of the song that was printed in a Sydney songster in the first decade of last century.

With its references to cars and 'phones, it would have been terribly modern ... and probably came from a local music hall performer. The lines you quote, however, are from a "reconstruction" (well, extra verses made up to make the song longer ... ) by a Canberra-based group: "Skedaddle".

Q: Oops! I, my haste, I picked up line 4 and repeated it as line 12 ... missing the rather neat little change at the end. Thanks for the correction. The ending in all three references, as well as The Penguin Australian Song Book, Compiled by J.S. Manifold, Penguin Books Ltd, 1964) is as you give.

Regards,

Bob

Corrected text:
HUMPING OLD BLUEY
(From Ron Mantan, Erskineville, NSW, Australia)

Humping old bluey; it is a stale game,
And that I can plainly see.
You're battling with poverty, hunger, sharp thorn,
Things are just going middling with me.

Now shearing's all over, and I'm such a swell ...
I'm riding a very fine hack.
If my friends were to see me - I'm not humping bluey,
I'm pushing a bit further back.

Humping your drum, and that after rum -
Wasting your young life away;
You're battling with poverty, hunger, sharp thorn,
Things are just going middling, I say.

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Humping Old Bluey - Australian Swaggie
From: Celtaddict
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 08:09 PM

Thanks, Bob, your store of information is so impressive every time.
The place we heard "Take Me Down to the Harbour" was in fact on a ferry trip in Sydney Harbor, in 2000, where it was playing on the PA system; this was not a tour but simply using the usual public transport.