Lyr/Chords Req: Travelling Down the Castlereigh

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Lyr/Chords Req: Travelling Down the Castlereigh

17 Jun 02 - 09:43 PM (#731880)
Subject: Travelling Down the Castlereigh
From: Percustard

Hi all,

Does anyone know a bit of history, author, collector, variants, and any tunes that have direct links with the Austalian Tune "Travelling Down the Castlereigh"?

There are other threads that touch on this but they are becoming too complicated for my small brain. So, start afresh.

17 Jun 02 - 09:52 PM (#731884)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Travelling Down the Castlereig
From: Percustard

Here's the midi

http://www.mudcat.org/alanofoz/castelreagh.mid

Bob Bolton, says, however, that...

Just dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's ... Thérèse Radic said that Basil (Cosgrove's) tune was found for Paterson's Travelling Down the Castlereagh, so it is not the one well known today.

Does anyone have any variants for "Travelling..."?

17 Jun 02 - 09:59 PM (#731888)
Subject: Lyr Add: TRAVELLING DOWN THE CASTLEREAGH
From: Percustard

More info

This time From

http://www.crixa.com/muse/songnet/088.html

TRAVELLING DOWN THE CASTLEREAGH

I'm travellin' down the Castlereagh, and I'm a station-hand
I'm handy with the ropin' pole, I'm handy with the brand
And I can ride a rowdy colt, or swing an axe all day
But there's no demand for a station-hand along the Castlereagh

So it's shift, boys, shift, for there isn't the slightest doubt
That we've got to make a shift for the stations further out
With the pack-horse runnin' after, for he follows me like a dog
We must strike across the country at the old jig-jog

This old black horse I'm riding, if you notice what's his brand
He wears the crooked R, you see, none better in the land
He takes a lot of beatin', and the other day we tried
For a bit of a joke, with a racing bloke, for twenty pounds a side

It was shift, boys, shift, for there wasn't the slightest doubt
That I had to make him shift, for the money was nearly out
But he cantered home a winner, with the other one at the flog
He's a red-hot sort to pick up with his old jig-jog

I asked a cove for shearin' once along the Marthaguy
"We shear non-union here," says he. "I call it scab," says I
I looked along the shearin' floor before I turned to go
There were eight or ten non-union men a-shearin' in a row

It was shift, boys, shift, for there wasn't the slightest doubt
It was time to make a shift with the leprosy about
So I saddled up my horses, and I whistled to my dog
And I left his scabby station at the old jig-jog

I went to Illawarra, where my brother's got a farm
He has to ask the landlord's leave before he lifts an arm
The landlord owns the countryside - man, woman, dog and cat
They haven't the cheek to dare to speak without they touch their hat

It was shift, boys, shift, for there wasn't the slightest doubt
Their little landlord god and I would soon have fallen out
Was I to touch my hat to him? was I his bloomin' dog?
So I makes for up the country at the old jig-jog

But it's time that I was movin', I've a mighty way to go
Till I drink artesian water from a thousand feet below
Till I meet the overlanders with the cattle comin' down
And I'll work a while till I make a pile, then have a spree in town

So it's shift, boys, shift, for there isn't the slightest doubt
We've got to make a shift for the stations further out
The pack-horse runs behind us, for he follows like a dog
And we cross a lot of country at the old jig-jog

Notes

First published in the Bulletin in 1892 This poem of Banjo Paterson's ('The Bushman's Song') has grown a number of tunes in its time in the bush. Meredith collected three tunes in NSW, and two tunes are given in the Queensland Centenary Pocket Songbook while in his Big Book of Australian Folk Song Ron Edwards gives another two. This tune is the one most commonly sung today, and was collected separately by Geoff Wills and John Manifold. Manifold got it from Mr Hines of Donald, Victoria, it is in his Penguin Australian Song Book

Top

(line breaks added by a Joeclone)

17 Jun 02 - 10:05 PM (#731891)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Travelling Down the Castlereig
From: Percustard

Interesting lead worth repeating from above source:

Notes

So there are a few questions:

1). Is the Bushman's song exactly the same at "Travelling..."? 2). What are the origins of the 3 tunes that Meredith collected? 3).What about those 2 tunes in the QCSB?

17 Jun 02 - 10:17 PM (#731895)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Travelling Down the Castlereig
From: Percustard

Some interesting info

From http://members.ozemail.com.au/~natinfo/poems01/a-bushmans-song.html

A Bushman's Song

(an extract)

"Banjo" Paterson

I asked a cove for shearin' once along the Marthaguy:
"We shear non-union here," says he. "I call it scab," says I.
I looked along the shearin' floor before I turned to go -
There were eight or ten dashed Chinamen a-shearin' in a row.

It was shift, boys, shift, for there wasn't the slightest doubt
It was time to make a shift with the leprosy about.
So I saddled up my horses, and I whistled to my dog,
And I left his scabby station at the old jig-jog.

1892

Andrew Barton ("Banjo") Paterson

Note regarding Paterson's use of the word "leprosy": Chinese were often referred to as "lepers" due to the widely held belief that they carried leprosy, a disease which can render the skin as scabby. Hence, the term "scabs" arose to describe non-unionists and strike-breakers, as Chinese were often used as non-union workers.

(line breaks added by a Joeclone)

17 Jun 02 - 10:54 PM (#731917)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Travelling Down the Castlereigh
From: McGrath of Harlow

"There were twenty bloody scabbies there a-shearing in a row" is the way I've always sung it, rather than Banjo Patterson's words. That's how I heard it and it stuck in my mind - and it's a better line anyway, and a lot more singable. The point isn't that they were Chinamen, but that they were scabs. (And I'm a bit sceptical about that origin for "scab". I think the term just means that strikebreakers are excrescences that you'd be better off without.)

I remember Nigel Denver sang it that way - he used to say that it went down great in Ireland, especially the line about "Handy with the rope me boys, I'm handy with the brand." He found out it was because with the Castlereagh being the British interrogation centre, people tended to assume that the song was something to do with the interrogation techniques employed on prisoners.

17 Jun 02 - 11:37 PM (#731939)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Travelling Down the Castlereigh
From: Bob Bolton

G'day Percustard ... and McGrath,

I noticed, reading one of John Meredith's books this week, that he always claimed that The Bushman's Song and Waltzing Matilda were 'collected' songs, from Paterson's assembly of the book Old Bush Songs that were 'accidentally' grouped with his 'own compositions' by his publisher.

I think that later research and evidence has clearly shown that Paterson did write Waltzing Matilda ... even if he did draw on some older material that he may have come across somewhere in the Bush. However, there remains the nagging feelinf that The Bushman's Song does not sound anything like anything else Paterson wrote ... good writing to a character - or scrubbed up 'folk song' ... who knows?

Anyway, the words were only printed as a poem ... and a lot of people put their own tunes to it (or remembered tunes already attached ...?), so there are a number of different collected tunes. I don't remember seeing any consistent collectionof all the 'also rans' ... but it would be interesting to see if there is any commonality in the other tunes. (Someone should put it all together ... preferably not me ... !)

McGrath: I don't see much to support the specific link of Chinese to Scab and 'leprosy', in the union sense either, and I note that Meredith changed the "8 or 10 dashed Chinamen" line to "8 or 10 non-union men" when he sang it with The Bushwhackers Band in the mid 1950s.

23 Jun 02 - 08:20 PM (#735441)
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Travelling Down the Castlereig
From: Percustard

Hi all,

I have discovered that I have, at home in a number of books, 4 versions of "Travelling Down the Castlereigh".

It is interesting to note that most singers considered "their version" to be "the version".

I reckon I'll muddy the water somemore and compile a tune from "all versions" and use as the final part of Tursacans medley of " Roscrea Cows", "The Rabbit Trapper" and "Travelling Down the Castlereigh".

It would be good to get all the different versions in chronological order.

Cashmere, for instance, appeared to be quite adamant that his version was the one. Is his the oldest? Where did he learn it from? And what about the "common" version of today?

I think I should hit the books again.

Seeya

Mark