Battler's Ballad (Jack Wright)

This song was written during the depression years in Australia, probably in the 1930s. Mike O'Rourke, recorded it in 1980, to his own tune, which I don't think is the tune that I sing. It has also been recorded by The Bushwackers.

Here is my rendition of the song and here are the lyrics.

Bound For South Australia

Also known as "South Australia" this is a sea shanty that was used by the wool traders who worked the clipper ships between Australian ports and London. It was well known as a farewell song, sung at the docks as the big ships were leaving. A version was collected by Laura Smith from sailors in Tyneside and printed in her The Music of the Waters in 1888.

It has been recorded several times, some notable recordings being by The Seekers (1964), The Pilgrims, The Poxy Boggards, The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem, The Corsairs, A.L.Lloyd and The Pogues (1987).

Here is my rendition.

Five and a Zack

This old bush ballad, about an itinerant worker, probably a shearer, who was shortchanged by a cheating timekeeper, was collected by Australian folklorist, John Manifold, from the singing of Keith Waller, North Stradbroke Island, Moreton Bay, who learnt it in the 1920's in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area.

A zac (or zack) was a coin worth sixpence - half a shilling. In today's terms it is a five cent coin, but no doubt would have been worth rather more than that.

Here is my performance of the song and here are the lyrics.

Four Little Johnny Cakes

A staple food of the Australian bush, a johnny cake is like a damper (made from flour, baking powder, salt and water), except that it is cooked in a pan rather than on the ashes of the camp fire. It is perhaps the Australian equivalent of corn pone, but made from wheat flour.

I first heard this song on the classic Moreton Bay album, with Brian Mooney, Martyn Wyndham-Reade and Dave Lumsden.

You can watch my video of the song and you can read the lyrics.

I've Been Everywhere (Geoff Mack)

Albert Geoffrey McElhinney (born 1922 in Surrey Hills, Victoria, Australia), better known as Geoff Mack, is a country music singer-songwriter, whose most famous song is I've Been Everywhere, written in 1959, which became a hit in Australia when it was recorded by Lucky Starr in 1962. It is basically just a list of Australian towns. Later the same year, Mack wrote a version with North American place names, which was recorded by Hank Snow and became a Number One hit in the USA and Canada.

The song has been adapted for many different countries, in over 130 versions, including a New Zealand version by John Hore (John Grenell) in 1966.

Others who have recorded the song in some form or other include Rolf Harris (1963), Lynn Anderson (1970), Johnny Cash (1996), Ted Egan, Mike Ford (2005), Willie Nelson and The Statler Brothers.

When I was asked to sing at The Indian Club in Melbourne many years ago I adapted the song by adding a verse of Indian place names.

I first heard this song as a teenager, and bought the single. In order to learn it I tried to copy it down by listening to the record, and, not being an expert on Australian Geography, got several of the names wrong. When I finally got hold of the actual lyrics many years later, it was not easy to unlearn the version I thought I'd heard and sing the correct names.

Here is my rendition and here are the lyrics.

Waltzing Matilda (Banjo Paterson)

The best known Australian song of all time. It is generally attributed to Banjo Paterson. The story goes that Banjo was told the story of the shooting suicide of a Samuel Hoffmeister beside the Diamantina River on 2nd September 1894. He was supposed to have been one of the striking shearers involved in the burning down of the Dagworth Station shearing shed. This was at least one of the stories that inspired him to write Waltzing Matilda at Dagworth in 1895, though some say he merely adapted the song rather than writing the original. In any case his words are quite different from the words normally sung today, except in the lesser known "Queensland version", the tune for which is believed to have been written in the 1950s.

The better known version was arranged by Marie Cowan in 1903 for Jimmy Inglis, who had heard the song being sung by Boer war veterans in Sydney pubs, and wanted to use it in a Billy Tea promotion.

A matilda means a swag, or a bedroll, and to waltz matilda is to hit the road carrying a swag.

A note on verse 3: “Where is the jumbuck?” seems like a silly question, given that the rest of the sentence says it is "in the tucker bag"; but this is actually an expression used in some forms of Australian English, meaning “give me that jumbuck!”

The tune was adapted by Christina McPherson from Bonnie Wood O' Craigielea probably from hearing it played by a marching band some months earlier.

Among the interesting discussions on the Mudcat site is a suggestion that the song is an allegory on the 1891 sheep shearers strike, which is dealt with more directly in the song Ballad of 1891.

Everybody sings this song, including me, so here is my rendition of the standard version, and here are the lyrics.

Here is my rendition of the Queensland version, and here are the lyrics.

Forerunners of Waltzing Matilda:

The Bold Fusilier

Although this song, also known asThe Gay Fusilier, is supposed to have come from the time of the Duke of Marlborough, apparently there is no record anywhere of its existence before 1900. Different commentators have rather seen it as a parody of Waltzing Matilda from either the Boer war, which was attended by the fusiliers, or even the second world war. Vaughan Williams pointed out that the language was not appropriate to the early eighteenth century period it pretended to represent.

There is a longer version of the song by Peter Coe, who added several verses to the existing verse and chorus.

Here is me singing the song and here are the lyrics.

Bonnie Wood O' Craigielea (Tannahill and Barr)

The words of this Scottish song were written by Robert Tannahill and the melody was written by James Barr, probably in 1805, though possibly after Tannahill died in 1810.

A cushat is a wood pigeon.

Here is my rendition of the song and here are the lyrics.

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda (Eric Bogle)

This song is on my first CD, Axis of Evil and Other True Stories.

You can see my performance. And here are the lyrics.