Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer

Subject: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: freda underhill
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 05:53 AM

Does anyone have the lyrics to this song, or any info about it?

hopefully

freda

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: pattyClink
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 09:43 PM

No, I just recall a memorable day spent around Ballarat, which is a ghost settlement in the Panamint Valley of California, very remote and quiet place now that the outlaws and miners are gone.

Or are we talking about another Ballarat?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 10:44 PM

"Subject: RE: Help: Aussie Songs for Expat ANZACs
From: selby - PM
Date: 05 Apr 00 - 02:02 PM"

HOW ABOUT Botany Bay, The Wild Colonial Boy, Bold Jack Donahue, Click Go The Shears, The Ballarat Horse Auctioneer, The Red-back on the Toilet Seat. for starter,s Keith


Other than two references to a Broadway play, I can't find lyrics OR info. Possibly a PM to selby would be in order?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 10:49 PM

Check the public library for both

"The Great Australian Songbook" and "The Essential Aussie Songbook". Site I saw isn't clear which book it's in.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 10:51 PM

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:Gc-sbhiVlbkJ:homepage2.nifty.com/ozlove/bgm2.htm+%22ballarat+horse+auctioneer%22&hl=en&gl=ca&

Scroll down.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 12:45 PM

Patty-

The inquiry is definitely focosed on the Australian gold field town of Ballarat.

It's interesting that there would be a town in California with the same name.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: pattyClink
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 04:59 PM

Ah, Australia. Glad a source was found!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: Peace
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 06:33 PM

There's yer trouble. "Glad a source was found!"

It's HORSE.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: Helen
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 07:51 PM

Hi freda,

I looked at the page that Peace linked to and then got Google to translate it. (What a giggle! A "Google-giggle". For some reason one of the books is called an Orgy.) The song listings are for each book "respectively" so I am assuming that the book with the Ballarat Horse Auctioneer in it is the Essential Aussie Songbook, which can be bought as a sheet music book and CD set. (Beware of a CD called Essential Aussie Backpackers Songbook, which comes up in response to the search for the E A Songbook).

BUT NO, I went back and checked the song listings and the list seems to match the other book better, i.e the Great Australian Songbook, but then there is a problem because there is a new edition with 300 songs and that one is available in lots of places but the older edition with 250 songs is harder to find and it appears that the song you are looking for is not in the new edition.

The Essential book is published by Macmillan Education Australia Pty Ltd.
This book shop says they will order it from the publisher and that supplies are limited so I'd contact the publisher direct, maybe, or you could order it at your local bookshop or, obviously, see if you local library can get a copy for you on Inter-Library loan.

But now I'm not sure which book it is in. Inter-Library loan would be a good option for the GAS 250 book.

Do you have any more details about the song? How did you find out about it, do you know any of the words, who sings it, etc?

And, pattyClink, it is possible that there is a historic connection between the Australian Ballarat and the Californian one. There were gold diggers who worked in both Oz & the US in the goldrushes. It's be interesting to find out which one came first, or whether there is a connection.

Helen

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: freda underhill
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 10:04 AM

hey, i thought this thread had died alone and unloved. thanks to you all for the detective work!

Helen, this enquiry is on behalf of my friend Rosie who is currently lurking around the folk clubs of london - I will let her know about the book!

thanks again all! (now i want to hear someone sing it!!)

freda

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: Helen
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 07:00 PM

Hi again,

If we had some of the lyrics, or more info I could Google for them. It's possible that it is known by another title as well and that would explain why it is hard to find.

Oh, and I looked up Ballarat, California:

Ballarat - Ghost Town

"Ballarat was born in 1896 as a supply point for the mines in the canyons of the Panamints. A quarter-mile to the south is Post Office Springs, a reliable water source used since the 1850s by prospectors and desert wanderers. George Riggins, a young immigrant from Australia, gave Ballarat its name when he proposed it should be named for the city in the heart of Australia's gold country."

signed
Googlehound

(Can't help it - the thrill of the chase and all that! It's the librarian in me. Old Librarians never die, they just Google!)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 Aug 06 - 08:07 PM

The National Library of Australia has a copy of "Great Aussie Songs" and the catalogue entry (click the link) has a complete list of the songs included.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: GUEST,rosie lee
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 01:33 PM

Thanks freda for starting this up.... the end is in sight. The words are set to the Irish Washerwoman - all a bit wordy but intriguing. I learnt the first verse, which I think goes like this:

When a new chum arrives first upon Ballarat
He's colonially speaking knocked in a cocked hat
By it's size and it's business, deep leads and gold,
Flash cabs and steam engines, stores new and old.
And if he walks down the main street at noon
I'll warrant his nerves are astonished quite soon
By the swells in bell toppers and girls (pretty dears)
And lastly the horse bazaars and auctioneers.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: freda underhill
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 05:04 PM

early this morning i got a phone call from Rosie in London - I had the pleasure of hearing her sing the Ballarat Horse Auctioneer. In return, she asked me to sing "The People have Songs" and we sang along together!

what a great way to start the day!

freda

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: Helen
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 10:02 PM

Hi Rosie & freda,

Curiosity got the better of me and I did a 'Net search of local library catalogues - TAFE, Public (not working) & University for the Great Australian Songbook (250 songs). As I was generally heading in the direction of the Uni I decided to brave the car parking chaos and have a look for myself.   I found the book, but no Ballarat Horse Auctioneer listed in that book.

The words appear to be an attempt at writing a traditional-sounding song, but they don't quite ring true as a real traditional song. The fact that it is sung to the tune of The Irish Washerwoman, rather than having a new tune makes me think it is a fairly recent song, too.   A lot of the songs in the GAS book were modern i.e. pop songs, but there were some traditional ones.

I also tried picking out phrases from the lyrics and searching Google but nothing even vaguely related came up.

Rosie,

Do you know whether this song was written fairly recently?

How did you find the song? Did you hear someone sing it, or was it on CD, or TV or the radio?

Helen

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: GUEST,rosie lee
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 06:35 AM

Hi Helen and freda!

This thread has been a buzz.. sharing the search. Also a real breakthrough, as I can't access hotmail or sign in to Mudcat through work, but can link in with this thread.. means I'm not tired and rushing at an internet cafe!

Thanks for the singing and chat freda...must do it again! Micca says Hi.

With regard to Ballarat Horse Auctioneer, I wondered if it had started out as a poem in the Bulletin or something like that - the language seems too quaint/self-conscious to be contemporary... but maybe I just mix in different circles and am not up on jargon to do with races/auctions/gold-mining. Maybe it's sung to other tunes as well. How old is the Irish Washerwoman? It has been pointed out to me that some other songs are set to just the first half of this tune, which is a bit easier to sing.

I have tried googling some of the lines I remembered on various occasions but came up with nothing - that's why I resorted to asking freda. The song has been niggling away at me, and I'd promised to sing it for one of the other folkies here in London as there had been a spate of horse fair songs at the Sharps folk club/singing session lately, and I thought people might be interested to here an Australian one. So I thought I'd better put in more effort to try to track it down.

I found it originally in that little red book - The Great Aussie Songbook, but alas, have since lost the book. I've not heard it sung by anyone. There were some other Victorian songs in the book, so I wondered if the song is sung/better known in Victoria. Keith knew it well enough to suggest it for an ANZAC day 'do' a couple of years ago in that earlier thread.

Here's what I remember of the rest of the song...
Verse 2:
You first see a great crowd all standing about
The gates of the horse bazaar - short, tall and stout.
They all wear flash Bedford cords, old cabbage trees,
Have big whips and riding boots, made quite the cheese.
They sum up the form of each horse that's brought out
and straightaway the nearest bar go in and about,
And blow of a mob that they know's coming down
and the flats they picked up at the races in town.

The auctioneer stands in a little square box
and with his whip's hammer head each lot he down knocks
He asks 'If you've all done' says that 'I can't tell
[line missing in book].....
[Then it all starts to get a bit hazy... about a very dodgy horse that is pronounced to be 'staunch and true up to 4 ton'.]


Verse 4 starts something like:

He'll tell you it's good for a puddling machine
Though a puddle's the nearest to puddling it's been
...
[something more about circus work/puddling machine.. then about being put in a trap, but the rider ending up flat on his/her back]

There are also a couple of references to 'a whim' which I realise now is also about the gold mining, like the puddling and circus work.




Verse 5...
So if anyone wants a good horse[?] to buy
And their luck at the horse Bazaar would like to try
........
....
If you should get a jib, a rank boulter or buck,
Sell him, take someone else in, again try your luck.
But in trying another, mind see[?] your way clear
Or you'll be sold again by the Horse Auctioneer.

Thanks again for all the interest. It's good to have that information about ordering the books and using the National Library. I hadn't realised how easy it is to do it.
Many thanks!
Rosie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ballarat Horse Auctioneer
From: GUEST,rosie lee
Date: 24 Aug 06 - 08:39 AM

PS Thanks also to Jim and other contributors... any guides to the language?