Lyr Req: Nine Miles from Gundagai (trad Australia)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nine Miles from Gundagai (trad Australia)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 01:01 AM

Needs more work

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nine Miles from Gundagai (trad Australia)
From: Shimbo Darktree
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 08:59 PM

On advice from Joe Offer, I would advise you lovely fellow Catters that song ID 4234 in Digitrad (Nine Miles from Gundagai) has the incorrect tune appearing below it. The tune which appears belongs to song ID 6904 "The Road to Gundagai" (which I know as "Lazy Harry's").

Joe has suggested I could arrange for somebody to send the correct MIDI, and he would pass it on to Dick Greenhaus for posting. Seems like I better learn about them there things! I have taken the step of downloading Finale Notepad recently, but something is preventing me from going further. No, it's not because I can't read music - I can. It is a case of chronic malingeritis - some of you may have experienced this yourselves. Hope it goes away soon ...

-Shimbo

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nine Miles from Gundagai (trad Australia)
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 06 May 11 - 04:09 PM

IIRC, I first heard it performed by the Bushwackers and Bullockies Bush Band (when they were still called that) touring England and performing at Sidmouth festival in the 1970s.

Kitty

Subject: Lyr Add: FIVE MILES FROM GUNDAGAI (trad Australia)
From: GUEST,roger rabbit
Date: 06 May 11 - 05:51 AM

I'm used to punching bullock teams across the hills and plains.
I've teamed them back for forty years in blazing drought and rain.
I've had me share of trouble, boys, but, hang me if I lie,
I'll never forget what happened to me five miles from Gundagai.

It was raining hard; me team got bogged; me axle snapped in two.
I lost me matches and me pipe; whatever could I do?
I couldn't make a pot of tea or keep me trousers dry,
And the dog he shat in the tucker box five miles from Gundagai.

I can forgive the dark and the cold and I can forgive the rain.
I can forgive me flaming team and go through this again.
I can forgive me flaming luck, but hang me if I die,
I can't forgive that bloody dog five miles from Gundagai. (etc.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nine Miles from Gundagai (trad Australia)
From: Leadfingers
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 12:06 PM

Its normally Nine miles , but to YOU , My Boy , call it Five !

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nine Miles from Gundagai (trad Australia)
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 04:03 AM

The dog monument (DonT) is about a large massacre near the Nine Mile, the ashes are over in the hills to the west of 'The Box' and the monument that guards the ashes and makes fun of the massacre, is at the Five Mile.

If you get a decent topographic map of the Gundagai area (or AirView online needs java) then look to the river near the DonT monument you will see a massive mirror image of the DonT monument that is 7 miles long.

None of the DonT story is about brave pioneers. Its about colonials who went troppo forming a mad pack themselves, who killed a group of Indigenous people who lived near that huge river dog-like image, who raided the flour waggon when it becaume bogged, so the colonials laced the remaining flour with arsenic.

There was nil brave in any of it and nil brave since with the continuining slinging off via the monument of that murderous 1830s event.

There was an earlier dog 'monument' nearer the nine mile. Its image is on wikipedia.

My lot have been here since the 1840s plus we used the river dog image on our soft drink bottles (check McCabes Cordials images as they appear on ebay or bottle seller sites), so we know.
jjones
Gundagai

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the dog shat in the tucker box
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 02:35 PM

John Meridith and Hugh Anderson, 1967, in "Folk Songs of Australia," say the songs date back to 1850, with a brief bit published in a Gundagai newspaper of 1854. Versions vary as to whether it is five or nine miles. There seem to be as many versions as there are reciters.

They quote a few verses as recited by J. M. Power:

Nine Miles from Gundagai

As I was walking down the road
I heard a lady say,
"Here's Joe Rule, the bullocky bloke,
He's bound for Gundagai."

Now Joe he was a manly chap,
Would share his only crust,
But a bigger bloody bastard
Never drug a whip through dust.

But Nobby fell and broke his yoke,
Poked out the leader's eye,
And the dog shit in the tuckerbox
Nine miles from Gundagai.

The shearer's cook the shovel took
The damper to unfurl,
Another sod, so help me God,
It bangs the bloody world.

The sun shone in the driver's eyes
The wheel run in a rut,
The whip flew off the handle
And his dog flew up a slut.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the dog shat in the tucker box
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 01:50 PM

thanks everybody

Subject: Lyr Add: WHERE THE DOG SITS ON THE TUCKER BOX
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 11:55 AM

There is a published song called WHERE THE DOG SITS ON THE TUCKER BOX with words by "Alf" and music by Jack O'Hagan, c1938.

The sheet music is included in a book called "Soldier Songs for Camp and Canteen" published in Melbourne by Allan's Music Australia, c1941. You can see online images at The National Library of Australia. These are the only lyrics given there, but I suspect there are more:

My Mabel waits for me underneath the bright blue sky,
Where the dog sits on the tucker box five miles from Gundagai.
I meet her ev'ry day and I know she's dinky di,
Where the dog sits on the tucker box five miles from Gundagai.
I think she's bonzer and she reckons I'm good o.
She's such a trimmer that I've entered her for the local show;
And my Mabel waits for me underneath the bright blue sky,
Where the dog sits on the tucker box five miles from Gundagai.

Subject: RE: the dog shat inthe tucker box
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 13 Sep 06 - 12:00 AM

G'day Rowan (Cap'n Dick, Charley, Bill D, Snuffy ... Uncle Tom Cobbley & all ...),

The text with Bill D's kink to the statue site doesn't do too bad a job of covering the background. The 'Bowyang Yorke' text is generally considered to be the earliest form of the genre (even if this version is little more sanitised than even the old newspaper quote) and the later songs given did bring Gundagai a bit of useful publicity.

John Meredith, a pioneer collector of Australian folk song / lore / &c, grew up about 90 kilometres south-west of Gundagai. He reckoned the local kids (and toymakers) knew just what the damned dog really did to the poor long-suffering bullocky's tucker box ... a popular toy of the 1920s was a cast metal dog, called a Gundagai Dog, squatting and with an aperture in its rear for an incinderary pellet, which - as it burned - vented forth a bubbling brown mess onto the pavement (or your parent's furniture ...).

(Errr .. Rowan ... I might get around to listing all the variants and sources ... but why spoil the fun of searching for all these diligent 'Catters?)

Regard(les)s,

Bob

Subject: RE: the dog shat inthe tucker box
From: Artful Codger
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 10:25 PM

In the above article, the poem "Bullocky Bill" [1857] mentions Nine Mile Creek - perhaps that's where the confusion arises. Assuming they were quoting the original poem. Does seem like they're indulging in a little revisionist history.

More info at this Australian Folk Songs site:
http://folkstream.com/064.html
Though I'm sure there's much more in other threads here.

Subject: RE: the dog shat inthe tucker box
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 06:40 PM

Aah aalways knaah'd it as Five Miles - Gannin metric it's probably 9 Kilometres but it dizzent scan in the song

Subject: RE: the dog shat inthe tucker box
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 06:25 PM

As I suspected, someone had streightened out the road.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: the dog shat inthe tucker box
From: GUEST,Rowan
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 06:09 PM

The version in the Digitrad omits the (usually recited) introduction, which is as follows;

As I came down Talbingo hill, I heard a maiden cry
"There goes Old Bill the Bullocky. He's bound for Gundagai."
A better bullock driver never earned an honest crust
and a tougher bullock driver never drug his whip through dust.

His team got bogged at Five Mile Creek. Bill lashed and cursed and cried
"If Nobby don't get me out of this, I'll tattoo his bloody hide!"
Well Nobby strained, and broke the yoke, and Bill sat down and cried.
And the dog shat in the tuckerbox, five miles from Gundagai.

The rest of the song, as in the DT, follows but sung. There are some added verses from what Jack Moses wrote, concerning the replacement of bullock carts by semitrailers [themselves now replaced by B-Doubles] and the Hume highway no longer goes through the main street of Gundagai but uses a bypass. This also allows retention of one of the longest timber bridges (across the Murrumbidgee flood plain) in Australia.

There is a Five Mile Creek near Gundagai (but no Nine Mile Creek that I've yet found) and the statue of the dog on the tuckerbox is neither five nor nine miles from Gundagai. But I'm sure Bob Bolton will come to our (and Dick's) rescue with the documented background to the song, known under both titles. I'd have put both titles in for you Dick, but the library was closing and wanted to shut its computers down; I couldn't type fast enough.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: the dog shat inthe tucker box
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 05:53 PM

plinth & statue to honor dog, not mentioning the REAL story

Subject: RE: the dog shat inthe tucker box
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 05:51 PM

On The Road To Gundagai has 5 miles (see On The Road To Gundagai).

According to this source: The Dog on the Tuckerbox, the actual monument to the dog is nearer 5 miles to Gundagai than the 9 of the song!.

Mick

Subject: RE: the dog shat inthe tucker box
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 05:49 PM

Great story, great song.

Subject: RE: the dog shat inthe tucker box
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 05:46 PM

well I thought it was ten, but somebody on this forum corrected me the other day and said it was five, maybe they were irish miles.Thanks snuffy.

Subject: RE: the dog shat inthe tucker box
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 05:43 PM

Dick-

Nine miles it is: Click here!

But I suppose nowadays it's only five miles!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: the dog shat inthe tucker box
From: Snuffy
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 05:43 PM

It's here in the DT as NINE MILES FROM GUNDAGAI

Subject: RE: the dog shat inthe tucker box
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 05:36 PM

Dick - I thought it was nine miles, but you probably know more about miles than I do.....

Kitty

Subject: the dog shat inthe tucker box
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 05:34 PM

anyone got the words to this australian song[ Five miles from gundegai]