The Nature Of Folk Song In Australia: Origins and Transmission. . Graham H. Dodsworth Graduate Diploma of Arts, Monash. . NATIONAL CENTRE FOR AUSTRALIAN STUDIES MONASH UNIVERSITY 20th December 2000 Master of Arts Thesis Summary: This thesis discusses the universal lack of consensus among academics and practitioners regarding definitions of folklore and folksong, and why this situation exists. This thesis also examines the essential characteristics present in folksongs and the importance of the existence of folksong. The nature of folksong is further discussed in this thesis via examination of the origins of songs Australians consider to be part of their heritage and the methods by which folksongs are transmitted, including the minor transformations which occur during transmission. The latter issue is given particular attention in a detailed history of Eric Bogle's composition, 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'. Finally, this thesis explains that Australia's folksong heritage has been influenced by a nation yearning for a unique cultural identity removed from the pre-existing unique indigenous identity, and as such contains elements of invented traditions, more usually in an anglo-western vein. The preparation of this thesis involved conducting interviews with performers and other participants in the field of folksong, the use of other printed works including broadsheets preserved in Sydney's Mitchell Library and the utilisation of electronic media including e-mail bulletin boards and the world wide web where many collections of folksongs are being generated and made available by and for people throughout the world, and where an unconstrained perspective of the 'common people' can now be found in abundance. Graham H. Dodsworth. The Nature Of Folk Song In Australia: Origins and Transmission. Graham H. Dodsworth. 06 August 2002 CONTENTS: 1. Introduction ~ Pages 1 - 9 Schools of thought ~ Page 1 The Australian Perspective ~ Page 5 The Modern Perspective ~ Page 8 2. Folk Song and Folk Status ~ Pages 10 - 39 What is a 'folk song'? ~ Page 15 Oral Tradition ~ Page 20 Folk Status ~ Page 26 Australian Folksong ~ Page 37 3. Authors, Composers, Lyricists, Songmakers ~ Pages 40 - 63 Known Authors ~ Page 41 Anonymous ~ Page 58 4. 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda': A Song History ~ Pages 64 - 102 5. Modes of Transmission ~ Pages 103 - 129 Broadsides ~ Page 104 Sea Chanties ~ Page 114 Publishers ~ Page 117 The Bush Band Era ~ Page 119 Folksong Today ~ Page 122 6. The Role and Importance of Folk Song ~ Pages 129 - 135 The Future ~ Page 134 The Nature of Folk Song in Australia: Origins and Transmission. STATEMENT This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other institution and to the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my most sincere thanks to my supervisor, Professor Peter Spearritt, and also to Dr Gwenda Beed Davey for their support and guidance in the preparation of this thesis. I would also like to thank staff from the National Centre for Australian Studies for their helpful assistance. Graham H. Dodsworth. 1. 1. Introduction: 'Folksongs' exist within a people's shared acknowledgement of issues, and as such are invariably a reflection of human circumstance. A folksong is a song where multiple versions exist, each as a voluntary performance. The variations which indicate and qualify a new version, when not due to a characteristic of memory function, are brought about by personal choice influenced by the various cultures and sub-cultures existent in each era or region. Deliberate variations signify that the essence of the sentiments and general meaning of the remainder of the song have been embraced. The volume of versions in evidence establish and increase the 'folk status' of the song, particularly where a song becomes emblematic of a region. The volume of regions where versions are found also increase 'folk status', as does the spanning of eras which is one criterion that can further qualify a song as a 'traditional' folk song. When one studies collections of folk songs from various cultures it rapidly becomes obvious that collectors vary in the emphasis they put on oral transmission when deciding the content of their collection. This issue is of particular relevance to the collection of folk song in Australia. This thesis therefore deals heavily with the issue of what an Australian folk song is to Australian folklorists, briefly on how this relates to interpretations elsewhere, and then examines issues of origin and transmission including the percentage of a song which is altered as it becomes subject to time, distance and other cultural influences. Schools of Thought: In Australia folklorists have had a vastly different field to harvest than their colleagues in other countries, richer had more been done to preserve the culture of indigenous Australians but also distinctly lacking in volume where colonial examples are concerned, particularly for collectors around the turn of the nineteenth-century where barely enough time had elapsed in which a rich oral tradition could have been generated. It is perhaps because of this alone that Australian folklorists put far less emphasis on the necessity of an oral tradition when determining the qualification of a song for inclusion in a collection of folk songs, but also of relevance is an understanding that Australia's colonial existence was chronologically second to that of mass culture where, as is noted later in this thesis, a printing press was among the cargo of the first fleet during colonisation of Australia by the western world. Albert L. Lloyd in Folk Song In England explains that the leading English folk song collector, Cecil J. Sharp believed: folk song could only exist among the common unlettered people whose faculties had undergone no formal training and had not come into close enough contact with educated people to be influenced by them. (Lloyd, 1967, 13) 'Unlettered' classes, at a time before broadcasts and sound recordings, would have relied entirely on an oral process to acquire their material and so Lloyd accurately portrays Sharp's opinion as advocating the necessity of folk songs to exist entirely and exclusively within an oral process but Lloyd then clearly explains that such an environment, 'shut away from the educated élite' is unlikely to have existed since the middle ages ¾ suggesting newspapers, railways, pillar-boxes and being in the employment of 'lettered' people as among some of the 'factors that might break down old "primitive" ideas' (Lloyd, 1967, 14) ¾ and therefore one would have difficulty classifying any song collected in England as a true folk song. If this is true of England then it is equally true of most of Europe and the Americas as well as Australia. Although some Australian folk song collectors have suffered criticism for omitting to collect songs written by their subjects in the 1950s, folklorists at that time generally considered such songs well outside the scope of such a collection because they had not withstood the test of oral transmission. Cecil Sharp explains in English Folk Songs that he 'upholds the communal theory of origin', that 'the typical qualities of the folk song have been laboriously acquired during its journey down the ages in the course of which its individual angles and irregularities have been rubbed and smoothed away' (Sharp, 1920, ix). In 1954 The International Folk Music Council adopted the following as the initial part of their definition at a conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil: 'Folk music is the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission' (Karpeles, 1965, xvi). The 1964 edition of Funk & Wagnells Standard Desk Dictionary: Volume I defines folk song as: 'a song usually of unknown authorship, originating among the common people and handed down orally' (Funk & Wagnalls, 1964, 248). The Little Oxford Dictionary of 1962 designates an oral requirement for 'traditional' examples only and defines folklore and folksong as including traditional examples. Traditional examples therefore, are a subset of examples included under the heading of 'folk': 1. folk n. (pl. same or -s) a) (treated as pl.) people in general or of a specified class (few folk about; townsfolk). b) (in pl.) (usu. folks) one's parents or relatives. c) (treated as sing.) a people or nation. d) (in full folk-music) (treated as sing.) colloq. traditional music or modern music in this style. e) (attrib.) of popular origin (folk art). [Old English] 2. folk-dance n. dance of popular origin. 3. folklore n. traditional beliefs and stories of a people; the study of these. 4. folk-singer n. singer of folk-songs. 5. folk-song n. song of popular or traditional origin or style. 6. tradition a) oral transmission of knowledge or belief from one generation to another; tale or belief or custom so transmitted. (Little Oxford Dictionary, 1962). Alan Lomax in The Folk Songs of North America is happy to include both written and oral transmission in his understanding of folk song: In the folk song of the West, for instance, there has been a continual interplay between the written and the oral streams of culture - the former fixed eternally in print, the latter living mainly in the bodies of a community of carriers and subject to slips of memory and to group emotion. (Lomax, 1960, xxv) By 1997 The Concise Oxford Dictionary lightens the emphasis of an oral requirement in its definition of 'tradition' while also shortening the time-span requirement from 'one generation to another', to 'an established practice or custom': 7. tradition a) a custom, opinion, or belief handed down to posterity especially orally or by practice b) this process of handing down c) especially an established practice or custom (it's a tradition to complain about the weather) (Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1997) In 1985 after 12 years of international deliberation the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) agreed by majority vote that: Folklore (in a broader sense, traditional and popular folk culture) is a group-oriented and tradition-based creation of groups or individuals reflecting the expectations of the community as an adequate expression of its cultural and social identity; its standards and values are transmitted orally, by imitation or by other means. Its forms include, among others, language, literature, music, dance, games, mythology, rituals, customs, handicrafts, architecture and other arts. (Folklife: Our Living Heritage, 1987, 13-14) I find this definition highly disappointing, considering the extremely lengthy process of contrivance involving seventy-one countries and meetings attended by representatives from forty-six member states (Folklife: Our Living Heritage, 1987, 13). At the outset the wording is curious, possibly subject to some anomalies of translation in an attempt to cater to the many languages of the participating countries. In English, the definition has vagaries such as 'group-oriented . . creation of groups or individuals'. The words 'reflecting' and 'expression' would have been better transposed to read ' . . expressing the expectations of the community as an adequate reflection of its cultural and social identity;' otherwise it implies examples should directly address 'cultural and social identity' rather than have a purpose of its own and perhaps therefore more honestly reflect these qualities through inadvertent detail. This section of the definition may have been clearer had it read: 'which adequately reflects its cultural and social identity in accordance with the expectations of the community'. The definition does not imply that transmission must be exclusively via oral means. Note also that UNESCO include both traditional and popular folk culture under the heading of 'folklore'. The Australian Perspective: Upon release of the UNESCO definition, in May 1985, an Australian government steering group established by the Department of Arts, Heritage and Environment decided to amend the definition deleting the requirement that 'folklore be tradition-based', and stipulated that it should 'reflect a community's historical and contemporary experiences' (Folklife: Our Living Heritage, 1987, 14). The alteration highlights the difference between an Australian perspective and perspectives gained elsewhere in the world. The Australian perspective can be attributed to the perceived youth of the nation, taking into account that Australia's indigenous history is unfortunately often not considered as a relevant factor in these matters. Australia's Macquarie Dictionary excludes any mention of the word 'oral' in its definitions relating to folk, although rather jarring in its description of folk song as 'simple' and 'artless': 1. folk a) People in general, especially common people b) people of a specified class or group: poor folk c) (plural) Colloquial the persons of one's own family; one's relatives d) Archaic a people or tribe. adjective e) originating among the common people f) of or relating to a folk song or folk singer. 2. folklore a) the lore of the common people; the traditional beliefs, legends, customs, etc., of a people. b) the study of such lore, folklorist, folkloristic 3. folk music a) music, usually of simple character, originating and handed down among the common people. b) music originating in the urban American beat generation of the 1940s and 1950s which concentrates on lyrics of social comment. 4. folk song a) a song, usually of simple or artless character, originating and handed down among the common people b) a song in imitation of this type. (Macquarie Dictionary, 1989). The definition adopted by The International Folk Music Council conference in Sao Paulo Brazil, referred to earlier, which Karpeles describes in her preface to English Folk Song: Some Conclusions as coinciding with the views held by Cecil Sharp, also explains that continuity between present and past, natural variation and selection by the community are important factors and allows examples to have originated with popular individual composers if the example has 'been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community' (Karpeles, 1965, xvi - xvii). Such a definition validates many of the examples published in collections of Australian Folk Song including some of the examples actually composed by A. B. Paterson and therefore also any songs included in either Paterson's or the collections of others where authorial identity and acknowledgement is uncertain. Despite Karpeles' alignment of Sharp with the International Folk Music Council's definition, Sharp himself however explained that the expression 'folk song' is a German compound where it has a 'wider and looser sense' than he believed necessary and he preferred to support the viewpoint of 'scientific writers' which restrict its meaning as 'songs created by the unlettered classes' (Sharp, 1907, 2). Lloyd in Folk Song in England finds Sharp's definition too restrictive but then describes the following as a 'boundless panorama going beyond all reasonable definition': . . . . any piece that has passed widely into public circulation is identified as 'folk', especially if one can pretend it somehow expresses part of the essential character of the nation. (Lloyd, 1967, 12) In respect to definition, where folk song is concerned, there are a number of distinctions that continually seem to be overlooked and which constantly cause mischief with the understanding of the nature of folk song. I refer here to a propensity for the words 'song' and 'ballad' to be interchanged too freely and the continual lack of distinction between 'folk song' and 'traditional folk song'. Where a ballad might be expected to tell a story, folk songs have no such requirement and where a traditional folk song might be expected to have some oral transmission in its past, a folk song which is not 'traditional', has no such requirement. This latter issue, dealt with in further detail in subsequent chapters of this thesis, is not so clearly defined in regions where the study of folk song spans many centuries, such as Europe, America and the United Kingdom where there has been sufficient time for an oral tradition to develop. Folklorists in regions where larger volumes of orally transmitted folk songs are available have the luxury of concentrating their studies on songs which they assume have this quality and where a distinction would seldom be necessary; this alone goes some of the distance toward explaining the lack of distinction between 'folk song' and 'traditional folk song' made in these regions, and consequently the confusion with which we now deal. Although one can understand how strong assumptions can be made in regard to the oral transmission of a song, how does one actually prove beyond all doubt that a song has been orally transmitted? The importance of providing a clear understanding of the nature of folk song is supported by arguments included in Folklife: Our Living Heritage, the 'Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Folklife in Australia', presented to the Honourable Graham Richardson, Minister for the Environment and the Arts by Hugh Anderson, Gwenda Beed Davey and Keith McKenry in August 1987. Under the heading 'A Need for Definitions' they explained that they were consistently asked to define 'folklife', 'folk arts' and the difference between 'folk culture' and 'popular culture' and referring to this phenomenon further wrote: that this betokened a clear absence in Australia of agreement on basic concepts and terminology, and this in turn presents a major stumbling block to discussion . . . . The difficulties arise on two levels: firstly, in everyday usage, terms such as 'folklore' and 'folk music' are employed loosely, giving rise to ambiguities and confusion; secondly, in formal usage, these terms suffer from a want of definition and understanding. (Folklife: Our Living Heritage, 1987, 11) Graham Seal in The Hidden Culture: Folklore in Australian Society also expresses concern regarding the issue of definition with the following: What then is folklore? Many attempts have been made to define folklore though none are wholly satisfactory explanations or descriptions of this vast field of human expression and activity. (Seal, 1989, 5) These issues are demonstrated during the initial chapters of this thesis in order to serve as a reference for the main purpose thereof which is to provide an understanding of the nature of folk song in Australia, including origin and transmission. The Modern Perspective: A case study of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' in my fourth chapter provides data on transmission both in Australia and internationally and gives a practical demonstration as well as some insight into the way songs proliferate. Scholars will note that although recordings and internet copies of songs are available to performers they have a tendency to solicit song words directly from other performers, particularly the author if at all possible, yet have no compunction to performing or recording the song in which ever form they can acquire it. My fifth chapter includes examples of transmission during the formative stages of colonial Australia examining the myth that Australia's folk song has been composed by a myriad of wild and uneducated 'bushmen', and discusses how a deliberate desire to establish a strong identification with our hardworking pioneering, pastoral population as well as our brave returned soldiers, influenced both the composing and collecting of folk song up to and during the Australian leg of the world's mid-twentieth-century 'folk revival'. Australia, still struggling today with issues of establishing a unique identity is now, for the first time, willingly rubbing shoulders with nearly every other culture in the world as we become absorbed into a cyber nationality where, adding to the culture sharing of international television documentaries and situation comedies, universal expressions and etiquettes are rapidly developing on the internet. Folk song enthusiasts world-wide, including Australians, are contributing to this development and therefore lyrical variations of folk songs are taking place in this domain which will directly affect future versions of songs to be found in Australia. At the dawn of an era which may well be described in future centuries as 'The Digital Age', I have invoked the services of 'The World Wide Web' of the internet, including e-mail, electronic bulletin boards and folk fraternity mailing lists to track down versions of songs as they tour the world. Such a method used warily now at the birth of this new mode of communication and publication will rapidly be of no use for such a purpose in the future due to the ease with which information can travel via this means. Songs uploaded today to an Australian Folk Song site from a Canadian web-site might just as easily have been lifted from a Welsh web-site the day before. Many such collections of folk songs are being generated world wide. Songs which were once collected orally or penned by candle-light in a small village somewhere in Somerset England for instance, can now be drawn from the truly global village of the internet by flexing a few forefinger muscles in one's own lounge room. 2. Folk Song and Folk Status: Much has been written regarding issues of definition where folksong is concerned and there is scant agreement. In 1967 Albert L. Lloyd in Folk Song In England wrote ' . . . after three quarters of a century of tune-collecting and nearly two hundred years of text-study, we are still without a definition of folk song that really fits our local conditions' . . . . 'Folklore definitions vary from country to country, epoch to epoch, scholar to scholar' (Lloyd, 1967, 14). Graham Seal and Gwenda Beed Davey, member of the Committee of Inquiry into Folklife in Australia in 1987, refer to Stith Thompson author of the massive six volume index of folk tales titled Motif-index of folk-literature: a classification of narrative elements in folktales, ballads, myths, fables, mediaeval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends, during their introduction of The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore, with the following: Thompson's definition was one of twenty-one separate definitions of folklore included in Funk and Wagnells' Encyclopaedia, a clear indication not only of the complexity of the field but also of the lack of consensus among scholars about the nature of folklore. (Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore, 1993, xi) Jill Stubington highlights the pitfalls of the 'lack of consensus' with the following statement. Many of the strictest definitions of 'folk music' are vigorously defended by people who never-the-less publish material under that title which does not conform to their definitions. (Stubington, 1993, 133) During the course of my research into folk song and my thirty years spent performing folk songs and socialising with folk song enthusiasts, I have continually encountered confusion and sometimes avoidance, regarding the criteria utilised to recognise or explain the nature of folk songs. The confusion seems mainly to hinge around the differences between a 'general description' of folk song - adequate among enthusiasts when dealing with folksong as an entertainment - and a 'definitive explanation' thereof, which is necessary when dealing with the issues as part of an academic study. In other words, between what folk songs 'usually are' and what allows a song to be categorised as such. A 'general description' need only deal with 'typical' examples, and serve as a simple guide, whereas 'definitions' require a degree of accuracy, to be used as criteria and 'terms of reference' to serve those who would discuss issues in detail and which include 'valid' exceptions to the typical examples. In addition to this there is the issue of the difference between 'song' and 'version'. A version of a song is also referred to as 'a song' itself and therefore when one person is referring to a version of a song by name, another person may have another version or set of versions, or even another song with the same name in mind, and these mismatches of understanding are not always easily detected. A simple example of how this phenomenon can cause confusion would be if a reference was made to the vernacular expression in the song, 'Gentle Annie'. The interpretation of this reference might vary enormously depending on the version of 'Gentle Annie' known to the participants. An American folklorist may be entirely unaware of the Australian song 'Gentle Annie', which although inspired by well known American composer, Stephen Foster, and based closely enough on the Foster tune to be accepted as having descended from it musically, is not the same song. The theme of the Foster song is more in the vein of one of Robert Burns' 'ode to a dear departed secret lover' poems and quite different from the version included in Theresa Radic's publication Songs of Australian Workinglife (Radic, 1989, 184). The Australian song was apparently written as a parody of the Foster song by a travelling thresher, Lame Jack Cousens of Springhurst Victoria and is reported to be about a girl named Annie Waits who was apparently still alive when the song was created and intended to be seen again the following season. Out of six versions of Stephen Foster's 'Gentle Annie' found on the internet in 1999, there was no variation in the texts from one to the other, all presumably taken directly from the copyright version. Although many examples of the nineteenth century Foster song can be found throughout the world, performances of his version at venues where Australian folk songs are performed are so rare that I have not heard it once, although I have attended over one hundred folk festivals since 1971, and countless other folk venues situated in every state of Australia. The 'Australian' song, also known as 'Gentle Annie', although originally a parody of the Foster song, varies widely from Foster's, and although far less common than other Australian folk songs, has been sung in most Australian 'folk venues' at one time or another and by virtue of the popularity of the growing number of variations of the song is certainly recognised as a 'folk song' more than the Foster original. Note the enormous lyrical difference between the song composed by Foster in America to that of Cousens in Australia. Were not the titles and the tunes almost identical we would be loath to draw any link between the two songs. (Version 1) 'Gentle Annie' By Stephen C. Foster (1826-1864) 1st. Thou wilt come no more, gentle Annie, Like a flower thy spirit did depart; Thou art gone, alas! like the many That have bloomed in the summer of my heart. Chorus Shall we nevermore behold thee; Never hear thy winning voice again -- When the Springtime comes, gentle Annie, When the wild flowers are scattered o'er the plain? 2nd. We have roamed and loved mid the bowers When thy downy cheeks were in their bloom; Now I stand alone mid the flowers While they mingle their perfumes o'er thy tomb. Repeat Chorus 3rd. Ah! the hours grow sad while I ponder Near the silent spot where thou art laid, And my heart bows down when I wander By the streams and the meadows where we strayed. Repeat Chorus The Australian version of 'Gentle Annie' printed in Songs of Australian Workinglife (Radic, 1989, 109), included below, differs greatly in phrasing from those recorded and commercially released in the late 1970s and early 1980s by folk revival performers such as Vin Garbutt, Martin Wyndham-Reid and Eric Bogle, who each recorded five verse versions, all of which include 'You're the little dark eyed girl that I adore' as their final line, the fifth verse being made up mainly of lines from the fourth verse. My own four verse version, recorded in 1981 and released in 1982 and taken from the Garbutt version which in turn came from the Wyndham-Reid version, ends with 'And I'll meet you on another threshing day'. More by co-incidence than any other explanation, my version corresponds with the version below except the first lines of the final two verses are transposed. (Version 2) 'Gentle Annie' ~ Hamilton/Cousens 1st. When the harvest time comes, Gentle Annie, And the wild oats are scattered round your door, You'll be anxious to know, Gentle Annie, How your little stack of oats is going to yield. 2nd. Oh, your mutton's very sweet, Gentle Annie, And I'm sure it can't be packed in New South Wales, But you'd better put a fence round those cabbages Or they'll all be eat up by the snails. 3rd. And you'll take me advice, Gentle Annie, And you'll watch the old chaffie going away. With his pack-bag hung on his saddle And he stole some knives and forks the other day. 4th. Ah, the bullocks they are yoked, Gentle Annie, And with you I can no longer stay. I'll bid you one and all farewell, Gentle Annie, And I hope we'll meet you on another threshing day. Quite clearly in this case, if an Australian folklorist were to discuss 'Gentle Annie' with an American folklorist, they may be unaware that they were not discussing the same song. However not all instances of these kinds of mismatch are as obvious or as easily demonstrated as this example and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of versions of some songs continually feed the phenomenon. The confusion of interpretation of the nature of folk song is a much larger issue than the example above demonstrates and far too widespread and ingrained for there to be an expectation of consensus in the near future. Even so, the temptation to begin the unravelling is irresistible if for no other reason than to ensure there is no doubt of my own particular understanding of the nature of folksong when interpreting the concepts expressed within these pages. The confusion regarding folk song definition needs to be addressed and exists firstly because it is easy to assume that the environment that has housed the phenomenon for many thousands of years is the only environment where the phenomenon can survive and secondly because collectors such as Cecil Sharp, Percy Grainger, Percy Jones, Hubert Parry, Charles Seeger and others, outside the culture looking in, appear to have taken a range of liberties which include self appointed censorship (e.g. Stubington, 1993, 133), political screening (Smith, 1985, 480) and premature assumptions based on general descriptions designed for lesser purpose for the casual usage of practitioners. The confusion arises where these general descriptions appear to be correct because they seem to apply comfortably to most of the material. It seems perfectly logical to believe that one who is a performer of folk songs would know exactly what a folk song is, however the many admissions of ignorance and examples of contradictory criteria from performers on this issue are a clear indication that this is not the case. There is no shortage of 'general descriptions' of folksong because they are as subject to oral processes as is their subject. A 'general description' might be phrased as follows: 'folk songs are old, orally transmitted songs that tell stories about people's lives and are accompanied by acoustic instruments, or without any accompaniment at all'. Although the above description is true of many folk songs, so too is the following: folk songs do not have to be old, do not have to be orally transmitted, do not have to tell stories or deal with the subject of people's lives and can be accompanied by any instrument whatsoever. The 'folk status' of a song is decreased where the subject or content, or engagement of the performance, is imposed upon the performer by an institution or persons other than the performer. Whether the source for a version has been recorded, set down in print or orally transmitted, does not qualify or disqualify a song as a folk song. Whether the author of a song is known or unknown does not qualify or disqualify a song as a folk song. What is a folk song? Folksong, along with humour, exists within a people's shared acknowledgement of issues. To understand the nature of folksong one must think of them as a species which can grow for thousands of years, the seeds of which may be spread to foreign regions where they are subject to new environments, standards and understandings (including misunderstandings), and sometimes grafted on to other versions of themselves and/or entirely fresh examples. Folk songs are an organic phenomenon and each representation of the song or any part of the song, whether in print, replayed from a recording or performed, is but a 'snapshot (photograph)' of the song in transition. Folk song can be presented in any genre and encompasses nearly all genres, in that all songs can become folk songs if they pass into folk culture. Those wishing to grasp this concept will concede that some genres are easier to equate with folk music than others. For example, country music, blues, jug band and bluegrass can more easily be seen as forms of folk music than perhaps the progressions of these genres, country rock, blues rock, reggae, jazz. Yet even punk rock, techno, dance party and death metal, with their strong sub-cultural support, can be seen as folk music if one examines the issues that bind folk culture together. Consideration of examples of 'protest songs' within these genres will assist an understanding of how a genre is merely the trappings of the lyrics, the decorative culturally influenced flavour of the method used to portray the concepts which hold significance to the people that embrace it. As these forms of music grow older and their progeny re-recorded as 'covers', some of which subsequently cross-over into other genres to be recorded yet again, we begin to understand the relationship between the sentiments of the songs and the philosophies of the people that keep them alive, either by performing them, recording them, purchasing the recordings or attending performances. Seen in this light, we are observing a process similar to oral transmission, where in many cases, over multiple generations, no printed version need necessarily be involved between 'snapshots'. Folk culture comes from 'within' a community, intrinsic to the existence of its people. Folk songs earn existence by living 'within' the hearts of the people that involve themselves with the songs. Although folksongs are usually not born of 'high culture' or 'mass culture', they can be, and they can also pass from folk culture into high culture or mass culture and back again, or simultaneously have representatives in any two or all three of these major divisions of culture (Butterss, 1993b, 49). The various phases of the song 'Waltzing Matilda', as explained elsewhere in these pages (p29), is a good example of this phenomenon. The sound or flavour of a song, or the instruments that may be used to accompany the lyrics, merely represent the fashion chosen to display the song. Any instrument, including modern day electronic instruments may be used to accompany folk songs. It is not the performance of the song that determines its folk status, nor is it the subject or content; folk status depends on how a people feel about the song. The relevance of content is purely for recognition, where a particular progression of words or notes or rhythm may be recognised and identified as being shared with another version. Folk songs may not necessarily contain recognisable words, just as dance tunes which don't have any lyrics at all, also enjoy 'folk' and 'traditional folk' status. Nonsense songs, spells, charms, children's rhymes, mouth-music and dance tunes, can and are regarded as having folk status because of the significance and importance people have put on them at any time during their existence. This importance is often evidenced by the number of people who engage in performing these songs regularly, whether as part of a children's game, a travelling song, lullaby or just played to enable, or inspire people to dance. If a dance tune, which has no lyrics at all, can be accepted as a 'folk' tune then the subject of the lyrics of a song is irrelevant when determining the qualifications of a song as a folk song. A grasp of this concept should aid scholars and other folksong enthusiasts - including those who ascribe to the school of thought that insists the subject of folk songs should be about people's lives (Sharp, 1907, 3) - to understand that the lyrical content of a song neither qualifies nor disqualifies a song as a folksong. An example of this concept is a nursery rhyme such as 'Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle' the content of which is nonsensical but which has unquestionable folk status. It could well be however, that the subject, meaning or phraseology contained in the lyrics of a song endears a people and inspires the propagation of multiple versions as in the American Civil Rights song 'We Shall Not Be Moved'. Such cases seem to disprove the above, however the same song, with the same subject, meaning and phraseology but which inspires no one to sing it thereafter, does not gain folk status and if the original performance was not recorded, may cease to exist altogether. In many cases a composer may continue to perform a composition for a number of years, even if the song fails to inspire requests, but again, the song is not being taken up or emulated by anybody else and so is not attaining folk status. The folk have not embraced it. A recognised lyricist, or alternatively a historian, might claim that a song which has not been embraced by a community is a better song and/or provides a more accurate description of the era than another song which does enjoy the community's support, but the former song, although of some value as a primary source, has virtually no folk status because despite being on offer to the community it has not captured them. A song which is less imaginative, less expressive or less accurate can achieve greater folk status because of one or two small details which capture enough community empathy for the entire song to be accepted. When this happens it is demonstrated by a number of the community declaring their endorsement of the song by taking it up and spreading it. In Australia 'Waltzing Matilda' is possibly the most notable example of this phenomenon. Usually, of course, folksongs are very expressive, do inspire the imagination and do reflect human circumstance and it is usually these qualities that endear the song to a community but the final test is whether the community of its own accord, for what ever reason, adopts the song or not. If they do, subsequent versions will spring into existence and its folk status becomes apparent. Although folksongs are often accompanied by acoustic instruments, it is a mistake to assume that the method of performance can be a qualifying factor. Today traditional folk songs are usually accompanied by acoustic instruments in a manner close to the manner in which it is considered they would have been played. However, it should not be assumed that a nine hundred year old traditional folk song ceases to be a folk song merely because it is accompanied by a modern day synthesiser. The significant element here is that somebody has wanted to perform the song and has done so, signifying that the essence of the song has present day appeal. It becomes more significant if the modern rendition of the song gains an audience, more so if others wish to emulate it yet again. If a lute, harp or fiddle is being used for accompaniment and yet didn't exist in that form, when and where the song originated, then it may as well be a piano, synthesiser, electric guitar or any other instrument being utilised where authenticity is concerned. A modern day synthesiser or digital sampling device may in fact be more capable of accurately reproducing the type of sounds that could have been used to accompany the song when it was originally performed. This, of course, also relies heavily on the unlikely scenario that the data for the research required to ascertain these facts is actually available either to emulate or assess the authenticity thereof. If reproducing the original sound or accompaniment of a song was necessary to qualify a song as a folk song, it would be impossible to qualify any songs at all. Although many present-day performers of 'traditional' folk song may believe they are reproducing a traditional performance, very few would be able to achieve this, and if their performance is accompanied, the instrument used for accompaniment probably didn't exist, either at all, or in the region where the song was generated. If it did exist, on the other hand, it may possibly have been tuned to a vastly different scale and had an entirely different tuning, not to mention rhythm, meter, dialect, language and cultural meaning. The variety of instruments that have been created in just the past few centuries alone is staggering. Although instruments similar to today's guitar, mandola, harp, fiddle and pipes were known to be in existence in the medieval period, they differed from the instruments we know today and each had their own unique scale and tuning (Midgley, 1976, 168-227, 278-289) (Buchner, 1961, 23-37). Some of these parameters would also apply to the unaccompanied performance. The question of authenticity of performance is an interesting one. People desire windows into the past, just as they desire windows into the future, and some tend to equate perceived inaccuracies of authenticity in the performance of a folk song, with ignorance or fraud. This is unfortunate, for neither ignorance nor fraud is either intended or committed. Many performers view their performance as nothing more than entertainment, a supplement to income, a hobby, passion or pastime. Others, some of whom consider themselves as 'professional folk singers' - a contradiction in terms perhaps - battle with the same issues of having to determine the ingredients which qualify their performance as authentic. Should they reconstruct an entire musical instrument for every song they perform or study ancient language and perform the songs in a myriad of different dialects? Audiences would be attracted by the variations in instrument design but at a loss to understand what was being sung about and possibly repelled by the odd sounds emanating from them. Authenticity is complex for other reasons. The 1998 Australian National Folk Festival, held in Canberra included a troupe of street performers performing seventeenth century Italian street theatre. In order to give their audience a sense of what some street performers did during that era, they included political quips containing topical comment and verbal ad-lib interaction with the audience. Had the troupe, in pursuit of authenticity, used seventeenth century language and provincial dialect and/or made quips that related only to seventeenth century politicians and events, the audience would have obtained a 'fish-bowl' idea of appearance and sound but no sense of what seventeenth century street performers were actually doing. In this case the audience was better able to gain an understanding of the nature of seventeenth century Italian street performance because the troupe had depicted modern day events and political issues using the language and syntax of the participating audience. Therefore obsessions with historically authentic performances can be of no purpose where the determination of folk status is concerned, as are issues of authorship and oral transmission. Songs passed on via oral transmission will by their very nature gradually shed the authenticity of their original context. If a conservative enthusiast happens to demand both authenticity of original context in a performance as well as a stipulation that the song has to be transmitted orally, we have a paradox. The paradox is not alone, since such conservatives also claim the songs have been composed by the collective creative energy of imaginary hoards of people down through the ages and yet condemn and discourage any changes made to the songs. Oral Tradition: An inherent characteristic of folk song is the change and modification that the words and music undergo in the process of oral transmission. Some people claim that when a folk song has been set down in print, it ceases to undergo change - 'that it is killed'. Nothing could be further from the truth. A folk song when printed is no more killed than a dog is when photographed. (Meredith, 1956, 2) The main method of transmitting folk songs, particularly in former times, when literacy levels were much lower or even non-existent was, by default, via oral transmission, and so it can easily be assumed that the oldest songs in existence must originally have been orally transmitted but it does not automatically follow that this is the only method of transmission suitable for a song to qualify as a folk song. Although an orally transmitted song qualifies as part of the 'oral tradition', this does not either qualify or disqualify it as a folk song. Not all folk songs have been orally transmitted and not all orally transmitted songs are folk songs. We must acknowledge that hymns and anthems have been transmitted orally for many centuries and yet have virtually zero folk status due to the controls on them 'from above'. They are part of institutionalised rituals. One could hardly argue that a monk or nun having chosen that vocation does so in agreement with each and every song they sing while in holy orders. This would not be expected, even if they had foreknowledge of the various lyrics. Quite often these vocations were chosen by their families based on varying philosophies, either devotionally based, where an eldest or second eldest son or daughter might be chosen, or based on economic self preservation where daughters or sons beyond the first three or four would be farmed off to the convent or monastery, particularly where a daughter seemed destined not to marry. The above has been practised in societies as wide ranging as the United Kingdom and Tibet for many centuries. There is also the issue of indoctrination to be considered. Devotional songs and chants, including their content, although perhaps written to some degree by choice, once accepted by the institution as part of their ritual, tend to remain so for reasons other than individual choice. Deviation from the exact texts of these items would be considered presumptuous and might in some cases even cross the boundary of blasphemy. It must be pointed out however that although many enthusiasts of folk song have a similar 'sacred' attitude toward folksong (e.g. Stubington, 1993, 139-140), the folk genre is not policed anywhere near as diligently as the religious houses insist. That some hymns and chants have been able to pick up some changes over the centuries is testimony to a degree of folk status, though its level must be considered as 'low'. Some academics and participants in the field of folklore insist that songs must be transmitted orally to qualify as folk songs, one of the foremost of these was Cecil Sharp in English Folk Song: Some Conclusions (Sharp, 1907, 4). Sharp became one of the world's leading folklorists and his theories regarding oral transmission managed to spread throughout the western world; his methodology emulated and applied to collections elsewhere (Stubington, 1993, 133). Therefore it is important to realise that Sharp's purpose of collecting authentic expressions of a pre-urban peasant class required an exclusion of influence from the educated elite (Smith, 1985, 478) and the most ideal examples of such song are more likely to come from an oral tradition. There are four main aspects to this: First, as Lloyd points out in Folk Song in England, such an environment has not existed since the middle ages (Lloyd, 1967, 14); second, Sharp's specific purpose for collecting songs is not the only purpose one might have for collecting folk songs; third, although orally transmitted songs may have been the surest or purest method of achieving his aim, it was neither a conclusive nor gauranteed method; and fourth, how can one prove beyond all doubt that a song collected as an orally transmitted song has always been so? Douglas Kennedy, Director of The English Folk Dance and Song Society in September of 1957 writes of singers who have 'got their songs from the mouths of other singers or from recordings' as having received their songs by the process of oral tradition. Kennedy goes on to say that The English Folk Dance and Song Society has serious reservations about people learning songs from printed sheets if they haven't already heard the songs sung, even to the point of 'the society' not wanting to sell them to such persons. He explains that hearing the song is the only way the living variables of the song can be transmitted along with the song (Kennedy, 1957, 4). Kennedy has a worthwhile point. Songs learnt only from a written sheet, without the student having heard the song, may lose the character and charm of the song as well as some important features integral to the sentiment and therefore meaning of the song, however, some or all of these same characteristics can still be lost even though the student has personally heard the song performed many times. Songs passed on via recordings, which is not an oral process, do not suffer from the above loss of variables to the same degree, however the student in these cases may miss out on introductions, explanations, audience reactions or discussions that may ordinarily accompany the 'live' performance of the song and provide valuable context (see Stubington, 1993, 141) particularly if the song was in usual circumstances only sung while sowing a particular crop, or used as a chanty to take in a particular sail on board ship. Oral tradition, in the strictest sense, is the passing down of information (or songs) through the generations, from mother to daughter, father to son or otherwise face to face. Regardless of these various methods of acquisition, the song still remains a folksong because the ultimate qualifying ingredient is still present, that people are identifying with the sentiments of the song enough to desire to share it with others. Taking this aspect a little further, there are those who would argue that the version of a song that has undergone a generation or two of oral transmission is a folk song and the printed copy complete with author, although identical, is not a folk song. These arguments are based on the previously discussed, misguided idea that oral tradition is essential to qualify a song as a folk song which ignores the all-essential quality of how the song is regarded by the community that has embraced its concepts; the ingredient that ensures the song is a reflection of attitudes and acknowledgements of human circumstance relevant to the region and era (see Dengate, 1987, 174). During the course of a concert series of lectures given at the 2nd Adelaide Festival of Arts in 1962, John Manifold, in company with The Bandicoot Troupe, described the songs of Charles Thatcher as 'definitely not folk songs' implying either or both his style and known authorship disqualified the songs, yet later in the lecture Manifold proceeded to introduce one of Thatcher's songs, 'The German Girls' by saying that he couldn't guarantee that the version he was about to sing would closely resemble Thatcher's version because 'these songs get polished and done over and improved and altered as they go from mouth to mouth' (Manifold, Gramophone Recording, 1962). Even pedantic scholars of folk song would admit that Manifold's description of 'The German Girls', would qualify the version he was about to sing as meeting the most conservative criteria of folk song. Manifold's subsequent statement regarding Thatcher's song is further manifestation of the confusion that has previously existed concerning the qualifying ingredients of folk song. Should we conclude that a version of a song which has become popular and cherished as a folksong at 'singing sessions' over an ever widening region, which has also been found in printed form with an acknowledged author, is not a folk song? This would be a surprising conclusion, if the essence, the meaning, and almost every word is identical or extremely close to the published version which itself may not necessarily be the original nor final version created by the composer. What happens if we discover the authorship claim to be false upon discovery of another printed version, this time without acknowledgement, in a publication dated ten years prior to our would-be author's birth date? Does it now become a folk song again? My research suggests its folk status remains unaltered by authorship because it is irrelevant to folk status. The fact that so many examples of the song have been discovered establishes it as a folk song and its folk status is further established if it has existed in more than one region or era, whether there is authorial attribution or otherwise (see discussion of 'Shanty by the Way' in chapter 3). This concept is re-enforced when one considers a scenario where more than one of the versions are claimed by different authors. It is the acceptance of those who surround the song and the way in which they regard it that determines its folk status. It also follows that if groups of people in many different regions independently decide to embrace a song, either from radio, recording or printed word and begin performing it or using it as a lullaby, protest song or dance tune, it is passing into folklore. Examples of this phenomenon exist already, such as the children's song 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' which is a remnant from a prior century, of a more formal classical composition designed to exercise a pianist's fingers. Only the more popular or momentous recordings made on wax cylinder and 78 revolution per minute long-playing records have been transferred to later formats and only the cream of these, we may presume, will be transferred to current formats and formats which are to follow. The concern, when the chain of oral transmission is broken, lies with the loss of understanding of the context of a song. Although such loss can occur even when the chain remains unbroken, the loss would be expected to be much greater and more certain when it is broken. This happens when a performer may discover what has been a recognised folk song in a collection of ballads such as Francis Child's collection of The English And Scottish Popular Ballads (Child, 1932) and then marries this with the tune and lyrics from either that source, or another, and makes changes either during arrangement or subsequent performances and portrays a fantasy perception of the original context that others take to be authentic without understanding many of the words or expressions or nuances of the tune, including the context at the time it was collected. The original context may have faded as much as a century or more prior to the collection of the song. The truth is, that this happens to some degree, with every song, whether collected from a true chain of oral tradition or otherwise and scholars in search of primary source material will, for that reason, follow the chain as far back as is possible to gain as much of an idea of the original context as they can. The loss of 'primary source' status a song may suffer is unfortunate for scholars unable to ascertain whether the chain of oral transmission has been broken, but irrelevant to folk status. It is possible that such scholars, during the course of their research, will discover enough other versions of the song, or other similar songs, so that the family tree of the version so created above will stand out as atypical and therefore not taint their understanding of original context. To the contrary, an understanding of the manner in which the song has been altered may assist in an understanding of the context of other versions they have under study. Regardless of the reliability of the song as a primary source, the folk status of the above example relies once more on the degree to which it is accepted by the people who come into contact with the song in its current form. If the reader is satisfied with accepting the word 'folk' as meaning 'people' or 'a people', and 'song' as the melodic structuring of lyrics or vocal sounds (including ballads, which can be taken as a sub-category), we can move on to examining the criteria which distinguishes one song as a better example of folk song than another. I refer to this concept as 'folk status'. Folk Status: If we accept that a song is a folk song because it has been embraced by a community or culture, then examples that have stood the test of time by continued acceptance will impress us as possessing greater folk status. 'At the beginning, all song is folksong' writes John Manifold in Who Wrote The Ballads? (Manifold, 1964, 8). This is not strictly true and I prefer to put a finer point on the concept by stating that 'all songs have the potential to become a folk song'. The further task of determining the degree of potential a song has; of predicting the folk status a song might expect, immediately following its creation or anytime there after, is far more difficult. It is not true to say that all songs attain 'folk' status merely by existing as the product of a person's interest or belief. A song in its new born state, which exists uniquely without the existence of similar versions and therefore devoid of examples proving its acceptance by more than one person, has virtually no folk status at all. It is a proposal without a seconder which therefore never reaches a vote. Arguments could cautiously be put to support examples of songs without variant versions, which appear among a collection of songs that do, as in Paterson's or Burns' collections. Reservations would mainly hinge around the possibility that the collector may have added songs of his or her own to pad out the publication or added some existing songs to fill out a repertoire of original material. There may also be the possibility, should certain aspects be in evidence, that a hypothetically discovered collection may belong to the originator of all the songs in the collection, including the songs that have since passed into folklore to which other versions might exist. This latter case would be a significant discovery where understanding the transitional changes which occur in folksong during transmission is concerned. Another example of what might be considered an exception to the above is where isolated mothers and mothers-to-be, on remote properties during the previous century or two may have composed lullabies which never reached the ears of other living souls, particularly in such a hypothetical case as where a mother-to-be might compose a lullaby for her expected child while her husband is away droving. If the drover never returns and the child and mother die during childbirth then would we class this lullaby as a folk song? We might theorise that if we were suddenly to discover the existence of many such lullabies via the offering and examination of letters received by family members, with or without sets of lyrics included or explanations that the lyrics had been set to one tune or another, we could determine folk status, this time not based on whether the song was endorsed by subsequent empathies but by whether the various examples that could be examined have endorsed each other as an accurate portrayal of a common human situation, condition or sentiment. Such circumstances although possible would be rare and exceptional and should not confuse an understanding of the usual criteria that allows a song to gain folk status as outlined below. An original song gains folk status if it is taken up by 'a people'. This can be done a number of ways, usually by many people learning to sing the song themselves and spreading the song throughout a community or region. A song further increases 'folk status' if it begins to be passed around and taken up by neighbouring groups of people, more so again if some of these groups of people develop a version of the song that better suits philosophies or tastes of their own and therefore is more likely to be a reflection of their own cultural environment. This is the point in time when people begin to refer to the song as a 'folk song'. These songs might then be taught to children, handed down from parent to child through one or more generations and as such become established as 'traditional' folk songs. A folk song may be learned from parents, children, work place associates, friends, complete strangers, a commercially released recording, the radio, television or from the internet via computer, mobile phone or other hand held or fixed digital device. The groups of people who adopt these songs do not have to do so consciously as Graham Seal indicates in The Hidden Culture: Folklore in Australian Society under the heading 'Folklore is informal' (Seal, 1989, 8). There is rarely any conscious or organised decision that initiates the official adoption of a song as the possession or decoration of any particular culture or sub-culture. They can enjoy various levels of popularity, ranging from those that gradually appeal to the amusement of a mere sub-section of a community and then quickly wane in popularity, to those that strike a larger section of an entire culture as significant enough to sing at regular gatherings such as local hotels, religious meetings, farewells or home welcoming ceremonies, for a number of seasons or more. Such songs that fall into this category might include football club songs, popular bus travelling chants or songs, such as 'We want to, we want to, we want to wee, if you don't stop for us, we'll do it on the bus!' and songs of protest such as 'We Shall Not Be Moved'. Songs further increase folk status if they are requested to garnish ceremonies or special occasions such as the Scottish 'Auld Lang Syne', attributed to Robert Burns - although he himself claimed only half of the verses (Sibbald, http://www.tamoshanter.free-online.co.uk/) - which is traditionally sung throughout the world today on New Year's Eve, using one version or another and achieving this status throughout the western world and beyond in less than a half century without the aid of telephones, radio, television, motorised transport or the internet. These songs begin as requests from a particular performer, often as a party piece to enhance a celebration or add solemnity to its occasion. If the song consistently and successfully evokes the sentiment appropriate to the occasion, there eventually comes a time where it is felt the occasion cannot be celebrated without the song, most evident in the cases of birthdays, New Year's Eve celebrations and other pagan and post pagan celebrations such as Easter and Christmas. Songs held in such esteem become part of the tradition of these celebrations and may therefore become traditional songs although younger than even one human generation span. The apex of this concept is when a song that is happily considered a folk song reaches the point of also being considered as a contender for a national anthem, such as Australia's 'Waltzing Matilda'. Were it successful however, its folk status would begin to diminish greatly. The particular version of Waltzing Matilda recently favoured as the Australian National anthem for instance, would upon gaining acceptance of that pinnacle, steadily lose 'folk status' to a point where it would generally cease to be considered a folk song. As time passed, that version would be thought of as being controlled from 'above', by the powers of authority, even law, and no longer necessarily the choice of the people. How much of a reflection, of a people's beliefs, can a song be when it is compulsory to sing it at the beginning or end of all official occasions and when there is no flexibility regarding the lyrics (including sentiment) one has to sing. The other versions of the same song however would continue on as before, and still be regarded as folk song, if not obliterated by the indoctrination of the newly anointed sibling. This same phenomenon can also exist in the realm of Christmas carols. During the previous century a number of folk songs were collected by representatives of high culture such as Vaughan Williams and Percy Grainger, who composed arrangements to display some of these songs. The various resulting manuscripts, as is customary in the domain of classical music, instructed performers in the precise manner in which the song should be sung, therefore imposing restrictions which prevented the singers from deviating from the composer's arrangement of the songs. These are again, examples of 'high culture' doing its best to control 'folk culture', inspired perhaps by a genuinely benevolent, though arrogant, attempt to lure the uneducated to contemplate higher purpose, or more likely the idea of showing the elite - their usual audience, the group most able to access their compositions - what beauty rustic folk culture has to offer at the hands of clever exponents from high culture. The point where folk culture is at odds with high culture is the appeal base. With folk culture the songs are in most cases performed by people who agree with what the song is saying - sometimes 'because' of what it is saying - with high culture, most of the people singing have not been party to the decision to have the song performed and less so, to any of the sentiments that may be expressed. The relationship between 'folk' and 'popular' culture is an interesting one. On the one hand we have the concept of 'popular', meaning 'of the people', 'generally liked or admired', or 'populace', meaning 'the common people' which is a definition that we might more happily attach to the word 'folk'. 'Folk', on the other hand, as we have seen earlier in these pages means 'of popular origin' which brings us full circle (Little Oxford Dictionary, 1962). 'Popular culture' has been poorly named, a more appropriate label might be 'pre-conceived', 'contrived' or perhaps 'commercial culture'. It is often included under the heading 'mass culture'. As Graeme Smith explains, under the heading 'Popular Culture' in his entry in The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore, Folklorists are more likely to make a distinction between folk culture and popular culture than scholars of popular culture, some of whom would argue that no distinction should be made (Smith, 1993, 328). There is a distinction, more easily seen today than during previous era's, where popular culture is more easily influenced by mass culture, indoctrination, tailored marketing and peer group pressures. A large number of people may decide to adopt a song due to high profile marketing, which includes the determined repetition of a song on the radio. A degree of confusion can exist regarding the folk status of an item when much later, after the repetition and marketing have long since moved on, these people still regard the song fondly, due to the memories it stirs, of an earlier era, during the time it was given saturation air-play. The labours of popular culture can directly (and indirectly via a nostalgic viewpoint), appear to have a bearing on the 'folk' status of a song. The question is: 'Do these people agree with the sentiments of these songs at all, and if they do, is it because they have been 'brainwashed', in the first instance by the constant repetition, and in the second instance by the identifying connection the song has with their memories of a younger, sweeter and more romantic era in their lives? Regardless of the reason, if the song does find its way into the hearts of people and germinates further by being sung and re-recorded by others, it passes into folk culture, in much the same manner as a percentage of today's Australian folk song has had its origins in the popular culture of broadsheets and other publications during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Therefore, it may be argued that the mass market has tainted the natural process that previously determined the popularity of a song, but it has not destroyed it. To this, some would argue that moguls of mass marketing determine first what is popular, and then market the product. Although this concept deserves consideration, the market doesn't always get it right, as fire sales of products priced well below their manufacturing cost attest. Another characteristic of mass marketing is the many products which are never offered to the public. The choice of examples that will be exposed to the general populace is executed by a small group of people with monetary or political - including apolitical - agendas. The middle ground is where songs around the edges of acceptability at the time of their creation or release eventually come to be accepted due to familiarity via constantly repeated broadcasts or the repeat playbacks of a favourite long playing or compact disc recording around the house by other family members. Before mass distribution came into its own with the invention of the printing press, songs must necessarily have relied more heavily on popularity of a more genuine and spontaneous nature and only become familiar if their popularity compelled people to perform them regularly, whether in the tavern, or as rhymes for games, chanties to keep workers in rhythm, or otherwise. As Graham Seal has noted: 'Variation of form and content across time and space is a fundamental indicator of folklore (Seal, 1989, 10). Changes made to folk songs, far from destroying their folk status, actually underline the validity of the altered product as remaining to be relevant to the people who surround it. The changes that have been made are evidence that the performer felt free to make changes to the song, and yet left much of the song unaltered. The parts of the former version that remain unchanged must be considered generally agreeable to both the performer and the intended audience. In this way the song can be seen to be a genuine representation of the beliefs and attitudes of the era, region and culture it exists within. The views expressed in the song, including any descriptions of folklife, must also have been accepted by its supporters, as a plausible portrayal of the era and region of its origin and the regions and eras the song has since passed through given that it may be impossible to know with any accuracy the degree to which any particular song has been changed. The enveloping culture during the period through which the song has survived and the regions through which it has passed may be deduced as not being at odds with the sentiments expressed in the portions of the song which have remained unaltered (Seal, 1989, 10). Where there is an intention to use the song as a primary source of information for the determination of historical facts, it is usually prudent to cross-reference the data gleaned from the song with data from other songs and other recognised primary sources before attempting conclusions. It is important to note that the issue of altering existing songs, whether authorship is known or unknown, can attract heated debate, as discussed in Jill Stubington's entry 'Folk Music in Australia: The Debate' in The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore (Stubington, 1993, 139). I was told on separate occasions by acquaintances of the deceased author of a workplace related song, The Factory Lad by Colin Dryden, that I should not vary from the original text when performing the song. They held this view despite reluctant agreement that I had not altered the meaning of the song. They also felt disinclined to make concessions when I explained that the author, whilst living, had no compunction as regards making changes when arranging other people's songs for his performances whether that author was alive or deceased. I had never felt inspired to sing the song with the original text and only warmed to performing it when I perceived the changes that to my mind would improve the listenability of the song. Being able to change the song gave me the desire to perform it. The criticism I received for having the audacity to change it rendered me disinclined to perform it in certain venues thereby, if not killing the song, then slowing its chances of survival. The following is the version of The Factory Lad that I currently perform at festivals and other venues. The version was arranged and adapted between 1993 and 1996 from words supplied by Jenny Simpson of whom Dryden was a family friend. Dryden sometimes stayed with the Simpson family in the New South Wales town of Wagga Wagga. (Version 1) 'The Factory Lad' by Colin Dryden (Adaptations by Graham H. Dodsworth). 1st. I wake up in the morning, the sky's as black as night, My mother's shouting up the stairs, I know she's won the fight, I stumble to the table, for a moment at my plate, Then it's out the door and down the road and to the factory gate. 2nd. Cold and grey in the morning light as through the gate I squeeze, As I clock in the bell will ring and I'll roll back my sleeves, One eye on the clock and the other, the lathe, and it's right lads is the cry, A turners fate is an eight hour day and I wish that time could fly. Chorus: Turning steel, how do you feel, as in the chuck you spin? If you felt like me, you'd roll right out and never roll back in. 3rd. But time can't fly like the spinning wheel and so 'tis work I must, With the grinding, groaning, spinning steel, the hot air and the dust, And it's many the time I'm with my girl, a'walking in the park, While gazing on the grinding steel and the blinding welder's spark. (Insert chorus) 4th. When my time comes as come it will and I must leave this place, I'll walk on by the charge hand's door and never turn my face, Out through the door into the light and I'll leave it all behind, With one regret for the lads I've left to carry on the grind. (Insert chorus twice). The major objection, held mainly by close acquaintances or friends of the author, was my exclusion of the original fourth verse (included below). A common argument used to justify this opinion was that I should not change anything at all because changing the song was obscuring the memory of the author. Their point is valid enough for us to assume this viewpoint has, and will continue to have, its influence over arrangements of existing songs where the author is known to either the arranger or the arranger's friends and acquaintances or audience. I continue to perform my version of the song despite these events and therefore we may also assume that some of the arrangers who fall into the above category and a great many others will alter the songs as they see fit regardless of the degree to which they respect the memory of the author. It should also be noted that I also knew the author very well and also treasure my memories of him and particularly his performances which I consider to be among the best of all performances I have personally experienced. Examination and comparison of the two sets of lyrics reveal that the essence and main sentiment of the song remain intact despite the changes and the omission of the original 4th verse. Note that the second version of lyrics below, which also includes this particular verse, and which would be more acceptable to preservation advocates, has ironically used a title taken from within the chorus rather than the original title given the song by the author. Words and phrases which vary from my own are shown in italics. Transpositions of text are indicated below with arrows and demonstrate how differences of text are often extremely minor, a trait of transmission which is demonstrated in further detail in chapter four. (Version 2) 'The Factory Lad' by Colin Dryden 1st. You wake up in the morning, the sky's as black as night, Your mother's shouting up the stairs, you know she's winning the fight, You hurry to the breakfast table and grab a bite to eat, Then out the door and up the road, and through the factory gate. Chorus: Turning steel how do you feel, as in the chuck you spin. If you felt like me you'd roll right out and never roll back in. 2nd. Cold and dark the morning as you squeeze in the gate. As you clock in, the bell will ring - eight hours is your fate. Off comes the coat and up go the sleeves and "right lads" is the cry. With one eye on the clock, the other on your lathe, you wish that time could fly. (Insert chorus) 3rd. But time can't fly as fast as a lathe, and work you must - The grinding, groaning spinning metal, the hot air and the dust. And many's the time I'm with me girl and we're walking through the park, While gazing down at the spinning steel or the welder's blinding spark. (Insert chorus) 4th. Well, old Tom, he left last week - his final bell did ring. His hair as white as the face beneath his oily sunken skin. But he made a speech and he said "good-bye" to a life time working here, As I shook his hand, I thought of hell - a lathe for forty years. (Insert chorus) 5th. When my time comes, as come it must, why then I'll leave this place. I'll walk right out past the charge hand's desk and never turn my face. Out through the gates, into the sun, and I'll leave it all behind, With but one regret for the lads I've left, to carry on the grind. (Insert chorus) (Radic, 1989) The folk status of 'The Factory Lad' is established because it has been taken up by several people in various regions and performed by them as portraying values that they believe to be true and important. The folk status of the song is not affected by the fact that the author of the song is known to most of the people who sing it, nor that many of these performers may have learnt the song either from a recording of the song or written word. The following version, taken from the posthumous release of a compact disc featuring the singing of David Alexander, would also be classed as acceptable to those who advocate preserving the author's version and is in fact a version of the song arranged and sung by one such advocate. Compare the variations between the two 'authentic' versions of Dryden's song (above or below). (Version 3) 'Turning Steel' by Colin Dryden (Adaptations by David Alexander). 1st. You wake up in the morning, the morn's as black as night, Your mother's shouting up the stairs, you know she's winning the fight, So you then shed out of your bed me' lad for you know it's getting' late, Then it's down the stair and up the road, and through the factory gate. Chorus: Turning steel how do you feel, as in the chuck you spin. If you felt like me you'd roll right out and never roll back in. 2nd. So Cold and dark the morning as you pass the factory gate. As you clock in, yon bell'll ring - eight hours is your fate. Off comes the coat, off go the sleeves and "right lads" is the cry. With one eye on the clock, and t'other on your lathe, you could wish that time would fly. (Insert chorus) 3rd. But time can't fly as fast as the lathe and work you must, With the groaning, grinding, spinning metal, the hot air and the dust. And its many's the time I'm with my lass and we're walking through the park, While gazing on the turning steel or the welder's blinding spark. (Insert chorus) 4th. Well, old Tom, he left last week - his final bell did ring. His hair as white as the face beneath his oily sunken skin. But he made a speech and he said "good-bye" to a life time working here, As I shook his hand, I thought of hell at a lathe for forty years. (Insert chorus) 5th. When my time comes, as come it must, I'll leave this place. I'll walk straight out past the charge hand's desk, I'll never turn my face. Out through the gates, into the sun, I'll leave it all behind, but one regret the lads I've left, to carry on the grind. (Insert chorus) (Alexander, 1997) The straight arrows above indicate where words were omitted from the verse during the performance of the song compared with other versions. One contextual reason for this, particularly as it appears to be confined to the final verse, could be that Alexander became short of breath by this stage of this particular performance and skipped the words in order to steal extra breath as he was known to do on occasion. We can assume the altering of existing songs has always been an issue for debate among those who believe they are familiar with an earlier version. Although one sometimes gets the impression the objection to the change is merely to demonstrate the objector's belief that they have a superior knowledge of the song, a conviction gained by their strong familiarity with the first version they came into contact with ¾ often mistakenly referred to as the original. During previous centuries when long distance travel was slower, more difficult, more dangerous and more usually a one-way permanent trip, that songs would travel and not only change singers but also authorial claimants along the way, with respect for authorship far less policed. Regardless of which point of view one favours in the above example, a deep feeling for the song is clearly demonstrated and therefore its folk status is established and increased almost as much by the controversy as by the emergence of rogue versions themselves. Songs with a substantial degree of 'folk status' deserve more kudos than such songs are currently afforded. Songs which command high folk status are less likely to be tainted or continuously encumbered by controls from 'above', or individually motivated political aspirations, either religious or governmental, such as might exist in a published article about an event or circumstance. A group of such songs may be considered more genuine if not accurate at reflecting the attitudes of the common people of an era, region and culture than a lofty offering of prose written by an academic or ecclesiastic residing outside the culture. Such works however can allow perspective when used in conjunction with a group of songs of high folk status. We may therefore conclude that although all songs have the potential to become folk songs, this potential will remain dormant in many cases, the folk status of others will grow to varying degrees depending on the life they lead, and the songs we generally refer to as excellent specimens, will be those that have found a warm place in the hearts of one group of people or another. It won't matter if we know who the author is, or if it was learnt from a recording or published article any more than a traditional folk song would cease to be so if it were recorded or published. Australian Folksong: The particular song mentioned above may also help us explore another perspective of the character of folk songs, that of determining nationality (sometimes referred to as origin). The 'Factory Lad was written about events in England by a musician who lived in Australia for many years following its creation, who then returned to England where he died soon after. The song has since been taken up by a small number of performers in Australia who, as has been stated above, appear determined, with varying degrees of success, not to alter the words in their particular versions. In other words they have not regionalised the song with Australian terms and phrases. Therefore we have a song which was written about an English factory environment, by an Englishman who after living in Australia for two decades, returned and died in his home country of England. Can we classify the song as an Australian song? Let us examine the following criteria. For a song to be considered an Australian song, the song must have: 1. originated in Australia, 2. been written by an Australian Resident, 3. been written about Australia, or 4. been significantly adapted so as to comply with the above third criterion The question might be 'Where did he write the song? If Colin wrote the song in Australia we could easily class the song as Australian, however, would we still class it as Australian if he wrote it in England before he came to Australia? Considering most performers who sing the song have no idea where it was written, we may assume its origin has no bearing on the number of performers who perform the song in Australia today. Do we class it as an Australian folk song because of the number of versions that exist in Australia or class it as English, although no English version might ever be found. Perhaps we should add the following criterion. 5. been established to have had residence (the song) in Australia for a reasonable period. I have placed the above conditions in order of acceptability. Conditions 2, 3 and 4 cannot enjoy the same status as condition 1, nor can condition 4 enjoy the status of those above it. Based on criteria set down in Australian Government policy regarding Australian Content in the Broadcasting industry, they serve well in the domain of folksong. If we borrow these policies as a guideline for our purpose, condition 2 may contain a sub-clause including criteria for qualifying an author as an Australian, which may in turn include a stipulated minimum period for residence in Australia (the determination of which could be difficult), as well as the words: 'whether residing in Australia or otherwise at the time of the creation', and 3 might include a clause regarding the percentage of the song that directly relates to Australia and also explain that the location of the creation of the song is irrelevant. An important factor to consider here is that lyricists and composers who may change their citizenships to other countries may still be reclaimed by a public as Australian where national ownership of their work is coveted. The main concern with condition '3' is where the writer of a song which is clearly purporting to be about Australia, may not have ever been to Australia or whose knowledge of Australia is so scant that the content of the song may bear no resemblance to Australian conditions. Such misrepresentation would likely disqualify the song as Australian, particularly in cases where the misrepresentation was so pronounced that its relevance to Australia could not be recognised, or which relied solely on the title or introduction to be labelled 'Australian'. A song guilty of this description, written overseas and perhaps based on guess-work, may still gain appeal in its country of origin and be considered by audiences in that country as an Australian song. Should the song actually reach Australia however, one would suspect Australians would not take the song to heart and therefore it would not be accepted as, or pass into, Australian folklore, at least not as being about Australia. I have added condition 5 because the song titled 'The Factory Lad', if written in England, may not actually have gained existence in England despite its history. Supposing Dryden had not lived in England for long enough between writing the song and travelling to Australia for the song to have 'caught on' there, and not lived long enough after his return to England to establish himself there as a performer, then the song may exist only in Australia. Condition 5 would be needed to give the song a valid nationality, but not without a qualm or two. 3. Authors, Composers, Lyricists, Song Makers. The following quotation refers to the late nineteenth century. The ballad of the 90s was a development from the old bush song, and the two genres had continued concurrently; but the ballad, usually written by a skilled versifier and intended for publication, was essentially different from the old bush song, often an anonymous folk invention. (Keesing, 1988, 100) Nancy Keesing put great care into the work behind her printed words, but in this case it is difficult to determine who or what 'an anonymous folk invention' might be, if it isn't merely a song written by a skilled versifier whose authorship has become unknown. How quickly can one lose their skills and education simply because their name has been forgotten or omitted from a manuscript or performance. John Manifold also subscribes to the 'anonymous hordes' theory in Who Wrote The Ballads? where he begins: 'There is no simple answer. In one sense, nobody did. In another, everybody did. . . . . . they had not a single author, but were the creative energy of the masses' (Manifold, 1964, 7-11). My research suggests Manifold's romantic notion of the origins of Australian ballads might be afforded minimal credibility if applied to ballads from the British Isles, the vintage of which could conceivably be numbered in many centuries, but not to ballads which averaged barely a human lifespan at the time Manifold was writing. Given that most songs may have at least one initiator as well as three or four collaborators after the fact regionalising and updating syntax and accent, over an average of seventy years, one might conceive the collective result - taking all of the songs as a whole into consideration - might be referred to as 'the creative energy of the masses'. Applied to an individual song however, Manifold's words are unintentionally misleading and disguise the fact that these songs, regardless of age, remain largely the work of one individual with subsequent performers making minimal alterations which are insignificant to the essence and general focus of the work. During my formative years of involvement with folk song, I too was romantically in awe of the songs I presumed had been written by the combined creative energy of generation upon generation of singers, continually whittling, redecorating and polishing songs as each took the song into their care. This is an engaging notion but whenever many versions of the same song are gathered together in one place for analysis, the changes revealed are minimal, suggesting that the polishing and updating occurs only within a set of unspoken rules designed to either preserve the song or strengthen what is already there. There is also difficulty attempting to determine differences of literacy, expression, knowledge or philosophical understanding between a song that has survived the ravages of time - acknowledged, edited, improved and philosophically re-affirmed by any number of keen performers - with a skilfully written song of similar vintage, the author of which whose name has merely been forgotten, or for that matter, where the author's name is well known. There are two major aspects to this, the first version of any folk song is usually the work of a single individual, regardless of the age of the song; second, the individuals responsible for this first version are generally skilled 'versifiers'. Known Authors: Many Australians think romantically of 'Banjo' Paterson as Australia's 'fair dinkum bushy' spending most of his time galloping through bushland on horseback, but he was also a prolific writer and publisher of literary works, and well recognised as such for most of his life, yet there is still confusion over which songs he wrote and which he collected as supposedly genuine examples of 'old bush songs'. An example of this confusion is referred to in Duke of the Outback under the heading 'The Old Jig Jog', where Meredith writes: 'This song and Waltzing Matilda were two traditional songs collected by Paterson for his Old Bush Sons [sic, should be 'songs'], but which were inadvertently included by Angus and Robertson in his collected works. They printed it under the title 'A Bushman's Song' but all the old hands refer to the song as 'The Old Jig Jog' (Meredith, 1983, 93). Let us examine Paterson's credentials. Paterson was a war correspondent for intermittent periods of his life (seemingly his main passion) and when he couldn't do this he would tour Australia conducting lectures on his experiences as a war correspondent. He published books, for example: Australia for the Australians 1888; The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses in 1895, which sold over 10,000 copies within its first year (100,000 by 1921), was described in the London Literary Year Book as 'without parallel in colonial literary annals' and as giving its author a public wider than that of any living writer in the language except Kipling; Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses (1902); Old Bush Songs, Composed and Sung in the Bushranging, Digging and Overlanding Days (1905); Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses (1917); Three Elephant Power and Other Stories (1917); The Animals Noah Forgot (1933); Happy Dispatches (1934); The Shearer's Colt (1936);. A. B. (Banjo) Paterson's involvement in literary works saw him as editor of the Sydney Evening News for two years, 1904 - 1906 and editor of Town and Country Journal for another, from 1907 - 1908 (Macarteney, 1972, v-vi). Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson was highly literate and yet his style is easily interchangeable with songs that are considered by most folklorists as genuine 'old bush songs'. There could be more than one reason for this, including the idea that he may have claimed songs that he merely collected. If we discard this hypothesis or grant that it may account for some works, then could the reason be that most of the other old bush songs were also written by 'other' literate persons with comparable abilities. These would be persons who may also have published works of their own, if not their verse then works other than verse, or who were less persistent or lucky in their attempts to publish, or weren't interested in publishing at a time when literacy was less helpful at putting food on the table. If we compare the level of detail contained in the third verse of Duke Tritton's 'Shearing in a Bar' (below) along with its abundance of adjectives in the first line and the fourth verse of his 'Sandy Hollow Line' including its expressive final line (below) with the 5th verse of Paterson's 'A Bushman's Song' also known as 'Travelling Down The Castlereagh' and 'We Travel a Lot of Country' (also provided below), and Lawson's 4th from 'Freedom's On The Wallaby' (below) we discover an odd phenomenon. Tritton, the poet who perhaps best fits the description of an itinerant bush worker, is the one who least feigns illiteracy. 3rd Verse of 'Shearing in a Bar' by Duke Tritton. 3rd. At last I caught the ball sheep, a wrinkled, tough-wooled brute Who never stopped his kicking till I tossed him down the shute, My wrist was aching badly, but I fought him all the way, Couldn't afford to miss a blow, I must earn my pound a day. So when I'd take a strip of skin, I'd hide it with my knee, Turn the sheep around a bit where the right bower couldn't see, Then try and catch the rousie's eye and softly whisper tar, But it never seems to happen, when I'm shearing in a bar. 4th Verse of 'Sandy Hollow Line' by Duke Tritton. 4th. And as the sun rose higher the heat grew more intense, The flies were in their millions, the air was thick and dense, We found it very hard to breathe, our lungs were hot and tight With the stink of sweating horses and the fumes of gelignite. 5th Verse of 'Travelling Down the Castlereagh' by Banjo Paterson. 5th. 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 makes a pile, then have a spree in town. 4th Verse of 'Freedom's On The Wallaby' by Henry Lawson. 4th. Our fathers grubbed to make our home, Hard grubbin' 'twas and clearin', They wasn't troubled much with Lords When they was pioneerin'. But now that we have made the land A garden full of promise, Old Greed must crook 'is dirty hand An' come ter take it from us. A prevalent, perhaps unfortunate belief that lyricists must strive for exact rhymes in their works, causes many to adopt a simple four line verse structure which often seems to draw them into using vernacular phrasing and a vocabulary that is more open via poetic license to surrendering such rhymes. Lawson's example above deliberately executes a masquerade by using vernacular speech (note, he leaves the 'h' on the word 'hand' to avoid confusion with the word 'and' while deliberately omitting the 'h' on 'his' and dropping the 'g' off words suffixed with 'ing'), while a less educated versifier may use a more flowery vocabulary when creating poetry than they would in general everyday conversation (perhaps even borrowing from the verse of others). Often a role is assumed when composing verse, where lyrics and phraseology is influenced accordingly by that role, and the level of literacy the author might command is not so easy to determine. A shy poet might also regress when preparing a work for exhibit and feign a less literate persona in order to cater to a fear of being judged, just as people on the internet today deliberately misspell words and skip capitals when hurriedly dispatching an e-mail in order to mask mistakes and words that might accidentally be misspelled. In fact, as Edgar Waters wrote in The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore: 'Literacy rates in the Australian Colonies seem to have been relatively high even in the first half of the nineteenth century' (Waters, 1993, 164). My research suggests that the bulk of material generally referred to as 'bush songs' has been composed by 'skilled versifiers'. Folklore comes from within a people's shared acknowledgement of issues and its authorship is not as important as the popularity, longevity, and ability of the work to exist without the encumbrances of formality and legitimacy that examples from high culture are often subject. Discovering or forgetting the author of a song, or pronouncing a song to be, or not to be a folk song, will make minimal difference to the number of times it will be sung if a people take the concepts within the song to heart. Whether the State buries one poet and leaves another's grave unmarked matters not to the degree with which their works will be reproduced in the folk idiom. The most interest a people have with authorship, if such authorship is known, is to locate performances or recordings of other songs by that same author in the hope that they may enjoy those works equally. Eric Bogle, writer of well known Australian song 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda', during the course of a radio interview about song-writing and authorship had the following to say: '... they don't give a damn, who wrote the song, when I used to listen to Elvis and all these people, when I was a kid, I didn't care who wrote the songs, I just wanted 'to dance', I just wanted to enjoy the song, and who wrote them was totally immaterial and it's still the same, nobody cares. And that doesn't bother me at all. That's how it should be in a lot of ways' (Bogle, broadcast interview, 1999). As stated above, my research indicates the vast majority of folksongs in Australia - given that there are occasional collaborations on an original work - have been composed by a single author and that most of these original works are retained in all subsequent renderings. Songs attract general popularity because they are skilfully written, and subsequently, over a period of time, people who enjoy the songs may alter them subtly, if not by accident or loss of memory, then deliberately but only to allow the songs to keep their relevance in a subsequent era, political climate or region, or in some cases to better suit a specific audience. Russel Ward in the forward to Warren Fahey's The Balls of Bob Menzies points out that 'The Broken Down Squatter' as written by Charles Flower of Queensland had 'changed little, if at all, in the course of being passed on by word of mouth (Ward, 1989, i). Except where sizeable portions are lost, usually forgotten rather than deliberately deleted, more than 80% of the essence and meaning of the verses seem to be retained in the versions we have today. In many cases changes are made purely to allow the song to retain its original meaning. My research suggests that the skills of single versifiers are valued by subsequent performers of their works to a degree where they are loath to make any alterations which might lose the original essence and power of the work that has inspired them, lest it lose that ability to inspire. In some cases regionalising, updating syntax, and conversion of an accent are considered acceptable alterations that either leave the essence intact or allow the song continued relevance. A song known as 'The Balls of Bob Menzies' which repeats its title within the lyrics (Fahey, 1989, 192), might become 'The Balls of John Howard' or another current political target of a subsequent era, or country if the song migrates. The main drive of the song remains unaltered, in the same way as the nationality of the butt of a racist joke may change along with those intended to appreciate it, but the joke itself remains unchanged and continues to spread among those to whom such humour is acceptable. Performers from any era are more likely to choose songs that in their opinion don't require alteration, particularly performers who don't consider themselves as writers, as is the case with most performers. Even writers feel uneasy about changing another's lyrics perhaps concerned that others may alter their own. The majority of performers from previous eras are likely to have believed, as they do today, that one shouldn't change another's song, that they are best left unchanged for historical reasons or out of respect for the author or author's notions, just as one wouldn't alter a sculpture or painting with the presumption of improving it. The Albury Ram: What happens to songs over time and distance can be demonstrated if we examine what is perhaps the oldest song with connections to Australian folk song, 'The Derby Ram', also known as 'The Darby Ram', 'The Albury Ram', 'The Albany Ram' or 'The Ram of Dalby', among other titles, which has its origins in England, keeping in mind that much of which has been accepted as being English folklore, including the Robyn O'Wood, Robyn Hude or Robin Hood ballads, have often been found to originate in European countries adjacent to the British Isles (Coote, 1885, 44-52), in particular France, Germany and Norway. 'The Derby Ram' has remained consistent in meaning and essence from the earliest version in evidence, to the most recent. The form of the song is consistent with many of the ballads Child describes as examples of songs originating in antiquity (Child, 1932, vi), although I was hard-pressed to find examples with syntax that might have afforded a stronger indication of such great age, nor are there examples of 'The Derby Ram' to be found among Child's extensive collections. Sea chanties are also a tangent of this form and some of the versions found bordered on sea chanty status. The Ballads that Child considered to be of earliest origin, ie 'The Bonnie Banks of Fordie' most resemble the work songs such as sea-chanties with their solo lines alternating with chorus lines. (Manifold, 1964, 11) Many versions of 'The Derby Ram', have travelled to America as well as Australia and according to folksong collectors, Albert L. Lloyd and Bill Scott, is thought to have had its roots in pagan fertility ritual (Scott, 1970, 11) (Lloyd, 1967, 88). A series of mummers plays are traditionally performed around shires of Derby every year, the highlight of which is the symbolic slaying of the ram, who is a performer covered with a sack through which protrudes a broomstick with a ram's head impaled upon it. The butcher stabs it in the throat and a character referred to as 'the boy' catches the blood in his bowl which is mentioned in many versions of the song (Lloyd, 1967, 91-92). For what purpose are they catching the blood in a bowl if not as part of some earlier pagan sacrifice ritual? There could be other explanations. The people of Derby, in former times, gilded the horns of the performing rams which seems to suggest that the play may be a survival of the Roman custom of gilding the horns of animals about to be sacrificed consistent with the ritual of catching the blood from the rams throat. The town of Derby is thought to have its origins in the Roman occupation of 2000 years ago, though the name is perhaps derived from the Viking word 'Deoraby', the place of the deer, almost 1000 years later. A large Roman Fort or Garrison Store of slaves once stood there, the remains of which have since been used to build later dwellings, some of which, at least in part, are still standing today. The Roman structure was possibly used to house slaves for export and later, the region, if not the structure, was thought to be used as a penal settlement where inmates would work the lead mines. A significant quantity of the lead from Derby is said to have found its way to Pompeii (Selvatico, Internet site, 2000). Perhaps this large stone structure was at one time in the shape of a large Ram? In 1204 under a charter of King John, the Burgesses of Derby were given control of their own affairs, granted the power to appoint a bailiff and a monopoly in wool dyeing over 15 miles. This allowed considerable prosperity. The mascot of Derbyshires 95th Regiment of Foot in the early nineteenth century was a Ram originally given by a Rajah from which it took its name and this prevailed as a tradition for most of that century where from 1845 to 1865 they had a black fighting ram that attended all battles and received medals along with the soldiers. In 1939 armorial bearings were granted Derby, a ram with gold collar was chosen as the crest in recognition of King John's charter and Derby established as an important wool trade centre. Derby's football team is well known as 'The Rams' and use a ram on their logo as does the local Morris Dancing Team. Within Derby there can be seen two statues of 'The Derby Ram' - A stone statue can be found at the junction of East Street, this was erected in 1995 and was the work of Michael Pegler and a bronze sculpture of a ram with a boy sitting astride was erected in 1963 in the Main Centre (Selvatico, Internet site, 2000). There can be no doubt that the town of Derby in England feels a strong affinity with a ram and has done so for some time. The song is known mostly as 'The Derby Ram' but also by other versions of the town's name such as 'Darby' and 'Dalby', and associated with other towns such as 'Albany', 'Albury', 'Yorkshire' and 'Skipton'. Title variations include 'The Skipton Ram', 'The Yorkshire Tup', 'The Derby Shed Ram' and 'The Ram of Derby' (Version 1) THE DERBY RAM (Unknown): This version comes from a Derby (UK) based web-site and interestingly uses the 'Darby' (with an 'a') spelling within the song but 'Derby' (with an 'e') in the title. The web-site is aimed at tourists and this may have had an affect on the version they have chosen to publish. The reason and source of their version was left unexplained. The discrepancy of spelling between the title and text can be explained by one version being superseded by another via a computer 'cut-and-paste' operation which excluded the title to save formatting time (they may not have noticed the spelling discrepancy or believed it unimportant). The text is more contemporary than most shown here (except for the recent parodies) and has perhaps been compiled from a number of different versions, possibly from other web-sites, by a non-performer who seems not to have noticed how long the song is or that he or she has included two versions of the same verse or at least the same 'gag', see verses 5 and 14. 1st. As I was going to Darby, Sir, All on a market day, I met the finest Ram, Sir, That ever was fed on hay. Daddle-i-day, daddle-i-day, Fal-de-ral, fal-de-ral, daddle-i-day. 2nd. This Ram was fat behind, Sir, This Ram was fat before, This Ram was ten yards high, Sir, Indeed he was no more. Daddle-i-day, &c. 3rd. The Wool upon his back, Sir, Reached up unto the sky, The Eagles made their nests there, Sir, For I heard the young ones cry. Daddle-i-day, &c. 4th. The Wool upon his belly, Sir, It dragged upon the ground, It was sold in Darby town, Sir, For forty thousand pound. Daddle-i-day, &c. 5th. The space between the horns, Sir, Was as far as a man could reach, And there they built a pulpit For the Parson there to preach. Daddle-i-day, &c. 6th. The teeth that were in his mouth, Sir, Were like a regiment of men; And the tongue that hung between them, Sir, Would have dined them twice and again. Daddle-i-day, &c. 7th. The Ram jumped o'er the wall, Sir, His tail caught on a briar, It reached from Darby town, Sir, All into Leicestershire. Daddle-i-day, &c. 8th. And of this tail so long, Sir, ''Twas ten miles long an ell, They made a goodly rope, Sir. To toll the market bell. Daddle-i-day, &c. 9th. This Ram had four legs to walk on, Sir, This Ram had four legs to stand, And every leg he had, Sir, Stood on an acre of land. Daddle-i-day, &c. 10th. The Butcher that killed this Ram, Sir, Was drowned in the blood, And the boy that held the pail, Sir, Was carried away in the flood. Daddle-i-day, &c. 11th. All the maids in Darby, Sir, Came begging for his horns, To take them to coopers, To make them milking gawns. Daddle-i-day, &c. 12th. The little boys of Darby, Sir, They came to beg his eyes, To kick about the streets, Sir, For they were football size. Daddle-i-day, &c. 13th. The tanner that tanned its hide, Sir, Would never be poor any more, For when he had tanned and retched it, It covered all Sinfin Moor, Daddle-i-day, &c. 14th. The Jaws that were in his head, Sir, They were so fine and thin, They were sold to a Methodist Parson, For a pulpit to preach in. Daddle-i-day, &c. 15th. Indeed, Sir, this is true, Sir, I was never taught to lie, And had you been to Darby, Sir, You'd have seen it as well as I, Daddle-i-day, daddle-i-day, Fal-de-ral, fal-de-ral, daddle-i-day. http://www.selvatico.co.uk/derbyuncovered/RAM-thederby.htm The first four lines of the above, version 1 of this collection, are fairly standard throughout nearly all versions, although due to the way the 2nd version is represented these lines number only two but remain the same in phrasing. Version 3 here is one of the few exceptions to the consistency. Note the reference to Sydney, Australia in the 2nd verse. (Version 2) THE DALBY RAM (Unknown): Collected and published by Albert L. Lloyd. 1st. As I was going to Dalby all on a market day I met the biggest ram my boys that ever was fed on hay And indeed my lads it's true my lads I never was known to lie And if you'd been in Dalby you'd seen him the same as I 2nd. The wool on this ram's belly well it grew into the ground Cut off and sent to the Sydney sales it fetched a thousand pound The wool on this ram's back my boys grew so very high The eagles came and built their nests and I heard the young 'uns cry 3rd. The horns on this ram's head they reached up to the moon A little boy went up in January and he didn't get back till June And indeed my lads it's true my lads I never was known to lie And if you'd been in Dalby you'd seen him the same as I 4th. The man that fed this ram my boys he fed him twice a day And every time he opened his mouth he swallowed a bale of lucerne hay The man that watered this ram my boys watered him twice a day And every time he opened his mouth he drunk the river dry 5th. Now this old ram he had a tail that reached right down to hell And every time he waggled it he rung the fireman's bell And indeed my lads it's true my lads I never was known to lie And if you'd been in Dalby you'd seen him the same as I The butcher that stuck this ram my boys was up to knees in blood And the little boy who held the bowl was carried away by the flood Took all the boys in Dalby to roll away his bones Took all the girls in Dalby to roll away his stone the crows 6th. Now the man that fattened this ram my boys he must have been very rich And the man who sung this song must be a lying son of a .... so he is Well now my song is ended I've got no more to say So give us another pint of beer and we'll all of us go away This next version, from North America, is one of the few that departs from the traditional first four lines, the reason for this can at least be partly attributed to a zealousness to uphold another tradition common with 'Derby Ram' songs, that of setting up a rhyme with the second line of the verse and leaving off the last word of the verse to imply a less socially acceptable word should be inserted by the listener. This version accentuates this characteristic more so than any other I have found. This device is usually reserved for the final verse which more often than not relates to the singer being honest but the author being untruthful. The first half of the final verse included in the version above includes both the device of leaving out a word as well as the honesty gag but perhaps misses the finer point of the gag. (Version 3) THE DARBY RAM (Unknown): (U.S. version. To the tune of 'Farmer in the dell'. ) 1st. They brought the beast to Derbytown, And drove him with a stick, And all the girls in Derbytown Paid a quarter to see his Chorus: Maybe you don't believe me, Maybe you think it's a lie, [But] if you'd been down to Derbytown You'd seen the same as I. 2nd. The legs upon this monster, They grew so far apart, That all the girls in Derbytown Could hear him when he 3rd. The hair upon this monster, It grew so very thick, That none of the girls in Derbytown Could see the head of his 4th. The horns upon this monster, They grew up solid brass. One grew out of his forehead And the other grew out of his 5th. And when this beast got hungry, They mostly fed him grass. They did not put it in his mouth; But shoved it up his 6th. He did not care for grass so much; He always wanted duck. But every time he ate a bird, He had to take a 7th. The garbage bill was awful, And it cost us quite a bit, But we had to keep a special truck To haul away the 8th. There's something else I'd like to say, Now what do you think of this? The folks would come from miles around Just to watch him take a 9th. The girls that live in Derbytown Will all sit in your lap. One night a girlie sat on mine And now I've got the http://back.numachi.com/cgi-bin/rickheit/dtrad/lookup?ti=DRBYRAM5 (Version 4) THE ALBURY RAM (Unknown): The version below printed on the back page of the Sydney Bush Music Club publication Singabout Volume 1. Number 4. Spring 1956. It was also spelt as 'Darby' both in the text and the title and uses the tune used for 'Goorianawa' and 'Lanergan's Ball (or Lonnigan's Ball)', the staves of which were included at the top of the page. The accompanying note stated the following: 'This version of THE DARBY RAM, (also known as THE YORKSHIRE TUP) was given to us by Mr. Jack Jackman, of Parramatta, N.S.W.' 1st. 1st. As I was going to Darby, Twas on a Darby Day, I saw one of the finest rams That ever was fed on hay. Chorus: Hi wrinkle Darby, Winkle, tooral lay, Winkle tooral laddie; winkle tooral lay. 2nd. This Ram hea had a tooth, sir That held four bags of corn; You could drive a coach and four In the inside of his horn. 3rd. His wool grew up so high, sir, It reached up to the moon; A man went up in May, sir, And never came back till June, 4th. The man who owned this ram, sir, He must'a been awful rich; And the man who told the story, sir, Was a lying son-of-a-bitch. (Meredith, Spring 1956, 16) Quite clearly, these versions, although collected half a world and possibly a century or so apart, share almost identical initial verses and some other lines as well. The theme of the song remains untouched as that of an unbelievably large Ram. Most important is the concept invariably contained in the last verses which imply that the singer is absolved from any guilt or responsibility as to the truth of the tale, the blame belonging solely to the author of the piece, again not made entirely clear in this version. (Version 5) THE ALBURY RAM (Unknown): The sixth verse in this version is virtually identical to verse 3 of version 1 included in these pages and verse 2 here matches verse 9 of version 1. The final verse below corresponds with the final verses of versions 2 and 4 and just under 50% of all versions I found. Other mocking attempts to verify the truth of the tale via the line 'if you go down to Derby Town you'll see the same as I' are even more common and many versions contained both devices. 1st. As I was going to Albury along the other day, I saw the finest sheep, sir, was ever fed on hay. Chorus: Singing blow you winds to morning, blow you winds, hi-ho! Blow away the morning dew, blow boys, blow. 2nd. The sheep he had four feet, sir, upon which he used to stand, And every one of them, sir, it covered an acre of land. 3rd. The sheep he had two horns, sir, they grew so mighty wide, They're going to build a bridge with them from Albury to Clyde. 4th. The sheep he had a tail, sir, it grew so mighty long, 'Twas used to build a telegraph from Sydney to Geelong 5th. The wool upon his belly, it bore him off the ground, 'Twas sold in Melbourne the other day for a hundred thousand pounds. 6th. The wool upon his back, sir, it grew so mighty high, The eagles built their nest there, for I heard the young ones cry. 7th. A hundred gallons of oil, sir, were boiled out of his bones, Took all the girls in Albury to drag away his frame. 8th. The man who owned this sheep sir, he must have been mighty rich, And the man who made this song up was a lying son-of-a-gun. (Wannan, 1976, 30) This version possessed the following footnotes: (Collected by Arthur Lumsden and Norm O'Connor of the Folk Lore Society of Victoria, from Tom Newbound of Rutherglen (V.), who died in 1960, aged 79. As John White points out in Gumsuckers' Gazette, Vol. 4, No. 5, June, 1963, this song is "a parody - one of many - of the old English song, 'The Derby Ram'." The above [in this case below] version is from Singabout Vol. 4, No. 4, 1962 but in accordance with a suggestion made by John White, the words 'from Albury to Clyde' have been substituted in stanze 3 for the obviously English ones, 'from Derbyshire to Clyde.') Note the acknowledgement of the regionalisation of the song in the closing lines of this footnote and the earlier misguided, yet easily forgiven, notion that it is a parody of 'Derby Ram' rather than a regionalised copy or later version of 'Derby Ram'. 'The Albury Ram' version does not ridicule 'The Derby Ram' versions, and is a steal rather than a caricature of the earlier versions and therefore not a parody of them, a true example of which is included below in the 'Goulburn Ram' version. However, their comments perhaps, inadvertently reveal the purpose of what might have been the original version of 'The Derby Ram', now lost to us, which was possibly a parody of an earlier song, also lost to us, that genuinely, proudly - perhaps arrogantly - attempted to portray Derby as having the largest sheep stock (or possibly deer stock as Deorby is the Viking word for 'place of the deer') in the region. A song which was perhaps resented, if not disbelieved by folk from other regions, and parodied for the purpose of propaganda in order to undermine Derby's sonorous marketing method. If so, the song which has captured the delight and interest of subsequent cultures, as is often the case, has been the parody, 'The Derby Ram'. 'The Derby Ram' as we have it today, parody or not, although quite clearly connected to a ritual dating back two thousand years, may not have been written till a few hundred years ago or later, when it was perhaps safe enough to ridicule such rituals without fear of retribution from the ritualists or worse, some pagan god for whom the ritual was intended. The degree to which the song has spread, the countless versions to be found, the degree to which the versions vary and the syntax of some of these versions, suggest that the song has vintage, yet lyrics of an antiquity evident in some of the ballads collected by Child and included in The Traditional Tunes Of The Child Ballads are not to be found (Bronson, 1966) (Child, 1932). To give a date to any ballad, any folk song at all, is risky. To give a date to technical innovations is impossible. (Manifold, 1964, 12) Throughout the entire life of 'The Derby Ram', regardless of the era or region a version has been discovered or title by which it is known, the lyrics have remained essentially the same. It can easily be claimed that more than 80% of the essence and general meaning of the song has remained unchanged. The hypothetical ten or twenty percent that is changed is always the same ten or twenty percent, that of place names and verbs that correspond with the words they replace. My research leaves us with the conclusion that the majority of songs referred to as Australian folksongs, most of which have generally enjoyed shorter lives than 'The Derby Ram', have also been equally retentive of their essence and meaning. There are no arguments to assume otherwise. Why should we assume a high percentage of the original text of a song has been thrown away by the very people who have enjoyed the song to the point of being inspired to commit it to memory and perform it? Although the song can be regarded as fair game for regionalisation and other small changes that allow an audience to identify with the song in a new environment, the essence of the meaning of the concepts expressed within the song remain unaltered. The song 'Autumn To May', made popular around the world during the folk revival of the 1950s, particularly the United States and Japan by American Folk Trio 'Peter Paul and Mary', may be considered as an entirely different song yet the similarities of motif draw one to conclude the connections to 'The Derby Ram' are not necessarily coincidental. (Version 6) Autumn To May. 1st. Oh once I had a little dog, his colour it was brown. I taught him how to whistle, to sing and dance and run. His legs they were fourteen yards long, his ears were very wide, And 'round the world in half a day upon him I could ride. Chorus: Sing Tarry O'day, sing, Autumn to May. 2nd. Oh once I had a little frog, he wore a vest of red. He leaned upon a silver cane a top hat on his head. He'd speak of far off places, of things to see and do, And all the Kings and Queens he'd met while sailing in a shoe. Insert Chorus: 3rd. Oh once I had a flock of sheep, they grazed upon a feather. I kept them in a music box from wind and rainy weather, And every day the sun would shine, they'd fly all through the town, And bring me back some fairy floss and candy by the pound. Insert Chorus: 4th. Oh once I had a downy swan, she was so very frail. She sat upon an oyster shell and hatched me out a snail. The snail it turned into a bird, the bird to butterfly, And he who tells a bigger tale would have to tell a lie. End with Chorus. The reference to sheep in the third verse is possibly coincidental but the focus of the first verse coupled with the motif in the final lines of song seem to suggest a connection. Another explanation might be that such a motif is obvious company to songs that stretch the truth. A less obscure exception to songs retaining more than 80% of the original work is where a true parody is concerned, because the essence of the original song is not the central focus of a parody. If 'The Derby Ram', is itself a parody of an earlier song, as I suspect, then the earlier song, although most probably also about a largish Ram could be expected to have a sentiment other than ridicule as its central focus. Equally, parodies may borrow from a song but not focus on the connection between the songs, such as John Warner's parody of 'The Derby Ram' included below. Jane Herival in a broadcast interview on 6 February 2000 spoke of a Goulburn Bush Band of which she was a member, that performed in a bistro whose owner, Louis, always talked of building a large Ram as a tourist attraction. Although Herival's band never actually sang any versions of the 'The Albury Ram' or 'Derby Ram' she had a friend who sang a song called 'The Skipton Ram' (Skipton, England). The bistro owner eventually built his monolith ram which is evident in Goulburn today beside a venue that interstate coach companies use as one of the two catering stops between Melbourne and Sydney (the other stop ironically being Albury). The large Ram shaped building houses merchandise promoting wool products and has viewing platforms behind its eyes from which tourists can see views of Goulburn. John Warner, resident of Sydney, oblivious to most of the information stated in the above paragraph but well aware of at least one of the 'Derby Ram derivations, wrote the following parody of 'The Albury Ram' titled in this case, 'The Goulburn Ram'. (Version 7) THE GOULBURN RAM (written by John Warner, 17 November 1985): 1st. As I went down to Goulburn town all on the Hume Highway I saw the biggest ram, my friends, that'll never be fed on hay Gaze held high on the distant sky and firm on his four fine feet A giant ram made by human hands in reinforced concrete. Chorus It's true, my lads, it's true my lads I've not been known to lie I speak no bull, it's three bags full And fifteen metres high Grey concrete from his hairy feet To the top of his nobbly crown Here's a health to the bloke who made The ram of Goulburn town 2nd. Now you should see this fine old ram because I can't begin To tell of his deep and wrinkly fleece and his prominent triple chin A chip off the block of merino stock, he's solid and four square A stone salute where the trucks pollute the Goulburn country air 3rd. The horns upon his ram's head they are so fairly wrought Magpies they will nest up there, and if they don't, they ought! No moulded plastic mischief here, just concrete wizardry Sandblasted grey, the colour of clay, the way that a sheep should be 4th. As I went down to Goulburn town all on a rainy night He stood there proud in a misty shroud alive with shadow and light His deep set eyes in his sculptured head gazed out at the coming day In years to come may the Goulburn Ram still watch the Hume Highway (Walters, e-mail, 1999) A parody of a song is not usually a continuation of the same song, it is a new song that may use the tune of the song upon which it is based (or may not) and some of the phrasing, but its essence has an entirely different focus and purpose. Anonymous: If we accept that the greater majority of folk songs are the work of a single individual, the issue of how songs become separated from their authors deserves further discussion. Examples of songs, some of which I have included below, suggest to me that the author of the original version of traditional folksongs, in most cases, is an individual with considerable confidence in his or her own ability to create such pieces, a person, like Lawson or Paterson, who is already established as a writer of verse or prose within their immediate community. I would expect these individuals to be identities whose names are well known in their own province by people who have witnessed recitations or performances of their works, either first or second hand. I would expect the composer's name to be more easily forgotten further afield, as occurred with some Eric Bogle songs in recent decades, by people who may have had no such direct contact and who may only have heard these works from the performance skills of others, to whom the author's name held less significance, and who may not have remembered to acknowledge the composer, they may even have deliberately allowed the audience to believe the work was their own, as is demonstrated below. Duke Tritton, mostly described as a shearer but who also had experience as a powder monkey, trapper, fencer, drover, boxer, timber cutter, a driver for Cobb & Co and gold miner among other professions and trades (Meredith, 1983, v), in conversation with John Dengate, related how he had heard the song 'Shearing in a Bar' casually performed at a hotel. When Tritton asked the performer where he had acquired the song, the response had been 'I wrote it myself'. Tritton called the man 'a liar!' and a physical demonstration of dignity outside the hotel soon ensued and managed to establish that Tritton was the more experienced at boxing. It also extracted the following question from the other party. 'How did you know I didn't write it?' asked the man, to which Duke Tritton replied, 'Because I wrote it' (Dengate, recorded interview, 2000). 'Shearing In A Bar' by Duke Tritton: When published in Singabout Vol 2. No 1. April 1957 the song had the following accompanying notes: In addition to being a folk singer of notable talent, 'Duke' Tritton has composed several songs about his own experiences. This one was written when 'Duke' and [sic, 'was'] fencing on Goorianawa Station in 1906 [The score was included]. 1st. My shearing days are over, though I never was a gun, Could always count my twenty at the end of every run. I used the old 'Trade Union' shears, and the blades were always full As I drove 'em to the knockers, and I chopped away the wool. I shore at Goorianawa, and didn't get the sack, From Breeze out to Compadore I always could go back, And though I am a truthful man, I find when in a bar My tallies seem to double, but I never call for tar. 2nd. Shearing on the western plains where the fleece is full of sand, And the clover burr and corkscrew grass, is the place to try your hand, For the sheep are tall and wiry where they feed on the Mitchell grass, And every second one of them is close to the cobbler class; And a pen chock full of cobblers is a shearer's dream of hell, So, loud and lurid are their words when they catch one on the bell; But when we're pouring down the grog, you'll have no call for tar, For a shearer never cuts 'em when he's shearing in a bar. 3rd. At last I caught the ball sheep, a wrinkled, tough-wooled brute Who never stopped his kicking till I tossed him down the shute, My wrist was aching badly, but I fought him all the way, Couldn't afford to miss a blow, I must earn my pound a day. So when I'd take a strip of skin, I'd hide it with my knee, Turn the sheep around a bit where the right bower couldn't see, Then try and catch the rousie's eye and softly whisper tar, But it never seems to happen, when I'm shearing in a bar. 4th. I shore away the belly and trimmed the crutch hocks, Opened up along the neck while the rousie swept the locks, Then smartly swung the sheep around and dumped him on his rear, Two blows to clip away the wig - I also took an ear; Then down around the shoulder and the blades were opened wide As I drove 'em on the long blow and down the whipping side, And when the fleece fell on the board, he was nearly black with tar, But this is never mentioned when I'm shearing in a bar. 5th. Now when the season's ended and my grandsons all come back, In their buggies and their sulkies - I was always on the track - They come and take me into town to fill me up with beer, And I sit on a corner stool and listen to them shear. There's not a bit of difference; it must make the angels weep To hear a mob of shearers in a bar room shearing sheep. For the sheep go rattling down the race with never a call for tar, For a shearer never cuts 'em when he's shearing in a bar. 6th. Then memories come crowding, and they wipe away the years, And my hand begins to tighten and I seem to feel the shears. I want to tell them of the sheds, of sheds where I have shorn, Full fifty years, and sometimes more before these boys were born. I want to speak of Yarragrin, Dunlop or Wingadee, But the beer has started working and I'm wobbling at the knee; So I'd better not start shearing, I'd be bound to call for tar, Then be treated as a blackleg when I'm shearing in a bar. (Singabout, 1957, 6) Regardless of who one believes, this story demonstrates that authorship may be easily claimed and just as easily falsified. On the other hand, it is also easy to doubt authorship where it is genuine. Poetic license must be a consideration when assessing the context of these songs. Examination of the dates mentioned in 'Shearing In A Bar' may lead one to believe that Tritton couldn't possibly be the author of the song. If, as the accompanying notes tell us, Tritton wrote the song in 1906 and had been shearing sheep for 'full fifty years and sometimes more before these boys were born', as the final verse tells us, then Duke would be aged at least in his late sixties in 1906 when the song was written, which would put his age at more than 115 years old in the mid 1950s when he met Nancy Keesing at the offices of the Bulletin in Sydney on Melbourne Cup Day, and 125 when he told his story to John Dengate at the Sydney Bush Music Club venue, the 'Boree Log' in Sussex Street, Wynyard. This was clearly not the case. Duke Tritton was born in the late 1880s and lived to be well over sixty (but not twice sixty). Tritton was actually around the age of 18 when he wrote the song in 1906 and the final verse was most likely added much later, perhaps when Duke had reached the age of sixty. In the same vein, it is worth noting that the original version of Eric Bogle's 'Now I'm Easy' begins 'For nearly sixty years I've been a cocky,' and yet he wrote the song in the 70s while in his late 20s, and is still yet to reach the age of sixty. Humorous songs necessarily take more poetic license than other songs but the level of detail provided here by 'Shearing In A Bar', if not totally factual, leads one to believe this has not been written by an armchair poet. Eric Bogle told me a similar story to the 'writing folk songs in a bar' story during an interview in March 1999 (Bogle, Broadcast Interview, 1999), and Jane Herival told me a separate story concerning the same Eric Bogle song but another would-be author during a recorded interview in February 2000 (Herival, 2000). There are songs which due to the skilful way they have dealt with a subject of significance, take the fancy of other individuals whose literary skills may not be so pronounced but who, for instance, may be more adept at entertaining or more knowledgeable or experienced in the fields dealt with in the text of the song, who either intentionally or unintentionally make minor alterations to the song. During these various generations of the lyrics, the songs may either acquire or lose vernacular expressions designed to appeal to the individual audiences. Such endearment may not necessarily relate to the song, but to the performance, or more likely, the 'performer', particularly when the performer is relying on the acceptance of his or her performance for income, a meal or the next drink. These changes are usually of a very minor nature, and do not affect the meaning or essence of the song. Examples of this phenomenon have been under our noses for some time. We need only look at more well known lyricists who were also collectors of folk song, to find, as we have seen with Paterson, more cases where there is confusion as to which songs they wrote and which they collected. The 'two' verse version of 'John Anderson My Jo' attributed to Robert Burns may merely have been collected by him, but he may possibly have written the 'six' verse version. Some people prefer to believe it was the other way around. He also wrote in the late eighteenth century that the two middle verses beginning respectively, 'We tae hae ran about the braes,' and 'We twa hae paidl'd in the burn,' in the well known song, 'Auld Langsyne' were his own (implying the rest wasn't), as well as referring to it as 'ancient': 'Light be the turf,' he says, 'on the breast of the heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment! There is more of the fire of native genius in it than half-a-dozen of modern English Bacchanalians.' 'Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase Auld Langsyne exceedin'ly expressive? This old song and tune has often thrilled through my soul.', 'The air [sic] is but mediocre; but the song of itself - the song of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript, until I took it down from an old man's singing - is enough to recommend any air.' Robert Burns. (Sibbald, http://www.tamoshanter.free-online.co.uk/) We also have evidence that some songs were collected and totally rewritten and others merely had verses added, altered, mended, left out or forgotten. There are many examples of songs being collected in a vernacular form where later the original authorship has been easily established beyond doubt. The transition from an illiterate majority to a literate one in western society, has made the tracing of some examples of these songs possible. A song with the title 'The Shanty By The Way' was collected in New Zealand by Dr Percy Jones in 1940 from a singer who had learnt the song from two 'diggers'. They said they had learnt it from a miner on the West Coast of New Zealand who had come from Australia 'nearly a hundred year ago'. According to Stewart and Keesing in Old Bush Songs and Rhymes of Colonial Times (Stewart, 1976, xi), the original version of this song was written by E. J. Overbury, a goldfields resident, and published in The Creswick and Clunes Advertiser as well as in a small volume of verses titled Bush Poems in 1865. The song was originally titled similarly, 'The Public By The Way'. In volume 1, number 3 of Sydney Bush Music Club's Singabout, is printed the song 'Look Out Below', prefaced: 'Here is one of the few folk songs that arose during the gold rush days. Mrs. Fielding of Dripstone, N.S.W. got these words from her father, who is now too old to sing the tune. We have used a tune given to the editor by Mrs. Fred Sloane (Sally) of Teralba, N.S.W., who was able to recall only the second verse of the words'. The song was clearly regarded as a 'folk song'. Would it have been so had they realised the song had a known author as opposed to an unknown one? The prominent differences in the collected version, as compared with the version published by Thatcher, is the 'regionalising' of the song from 'Ballarat' to 'The Lachlan' as would be expected, the smoothing from words such as 'Quoth' with 'He says' and the usual ravages of human memory where verse three of Thatcher's version is completely missing from the collected one. Other than the above mentioned details, the lyrics are almost identical. 'Look Out Below' by Charles R. Thatcher. Published by Thatcher (1864) A young man left his native shores, For trade was bad at home; To seek his fortune in this land He crossed the briny foam And when he went to Ballarat, It put him in a glow, To hear the sound of the windlass, And the cry 'Look Out Below!' (Stewart, 1976, 97) Collected from Sally Sloane (1950s). A young man left his native town Through trade being slack at home, To seek his fortune in this land He crossed the briny foam. And when he came to The Lachlan His heart was in a glow, To hear the sound of the windlasses, And the cry 'Look Out Below!' (Meredith, 1956, 3) There appears to be a discrepancy between the notes accompanying the song in 'Singabout Vol 1. No. 3. Winter 1956' and Meredith's 'Folk Songs of Australia and the Men and Women Who Sang Them' in that the former states that Mrs. Fred Sloane was living in Teralba, NSW., and the latter has Sally Sloane living in Lithgow. Both however agree that she only supplied the 2nd verse (or 2nd half of 1st verse depending on format), and both supply the same words. Meredith was the editor of both publications and although there is no acknowledgement in the 1956 publication, he acknowledges Thatcher in the 1967 publication as the original lyricist with no mention of the localisation of the 5th line of the song. Ron Edwards published Charles R. Thatcher's 'German Girls' in his The Overlander Songbook in 1971 without acknowledging Thatcher (Edwards, 1971, 178). The book was also published in 1956 and 1969. Whether Edwards was aware of Thatcher's authorship is unnecessary to make the following point. A singer using any of these editions of Edward's book to learn this song, would then have been spreading Thatcher's song without acknowledgement for Thatcher, just as street-singers using many of the broadsheets prior to the 19th Century must also have done to the authors of those songs. 4. 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda': A Song History. People often speak of originals when discussing folk songs, they might say 'you're not singing the original version of that song', for instance. What they mean is 'you are not singing the version of that song which I am most familiar with or which I first heard long before I heard the one you are singing'. Even when we know the writer of a song, we must be very careful before we speak of original versions. I have encountered people who thought they sang the original version of a song because they learnt it from the composer of the song not realising that by the time they met the composer the song was in its fifth generation and that most people having heard or learnt the song many years earlier are more familiar with a different version of the song, also directly from the composer. It can also follow that it is a later version again that gets recorded and released and which then becomes the most popular version of all. Sometimes it is a version recorded by someone other than the composer that becomes the most popular. A close study of Eric Bogle's 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' enables a demonstration of issues of authorship, acknowledgement and the nature of subsequent alterations made to songs as they travel and proliferate. The known history of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' demonstrates how and where a song may originate, the methods by which they may be transmitted and the effects of time and distance on them. We may then, to some degree, use the history of this song as an insight into the history of songs where such detail is not available. I was surprised to discover that even where the author and all the people who have ever dealt with a particular song is known, that some dates and other details can vary from one account to the next and still remain difficult to determine with absolute accuracy. 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda' was written by Eric Bogle while he was living in Canberra in April 1971. After a quiet beginning the song gained attention and aroused disputation by achieving only third place in a song writing competition at the Brisbane National Folk Festival in 1974. A performer visiting from the United Kingdom, Jane Herival obtained the words immediately following the competition and conveyed them to June Tabor, a prominent performer in the U.K. who then recorded and released it commercially. Other performers at the Brisbane National Folk Festival that year also took down the words of the song and upon return to their respective states of Australia, began passing it on to other performers. It wasn't until many other performers had recorded the song that Eric Bogle also recorded his song, in 1978, and released it on Warren Fahey's Larrikin label. By the following year there were around 56 recorded versions of the song released to the public by various artists rising to 130 recordings by 1996, including around twelve which were in languages other than English. Today there are more than fifty web-sites, that mention the unique title and phrase 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' and more than thirty of these supply a complete set of the lyrics, including a few which also allow visitors to play an audio sound sample or midi track of the tune. The versions vary in minor ways and those that do not credit the song to Eric Bogle describe the author as unknown or anonymous. Of the versions to be found on the internet I could find no evidence of false attribution to the authorship of this song. Eric Bogle, a naturalised Australian, lives in Adelaide. He immigrated to Australia from Peebles in Scotland in 1971, where he had been part of a pop band known as 'Eric and the Informers'. Eric's accent, even today, is still unmistakably Scottish and fans of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' are often just as surprised to hear his Scottish accent, as they are to discover that he still has both of his legs (many believing his song to be autobiographical, expect him to be much older and minus his legs). 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda', although written by one who is understandably described as a Scotsman, has an unmistakably Australian origin. Although subject matter may not determine the folk status of a song, it does point one in the direction of where the song may have originated. I had originally been told by others, that Eric had been inspired to write 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda' after he read a book about World War I, but according to Eric himself, he was inspired to write the song due to witnessing an ANZAC day march. The song achieved immediate notoriety when many of those present at the 1974 Australian National Folk Festival song writing competition, held in Brisbane that year, felt the judges were in error to give the song only 3rd place and not 1st place. Michael O'Rourke, one of the judges, upon his return to Melbourne told the story from his viewpoint with much emotion. 'I thought they were going to lynch me!' he told me in his usual expressive manner at The Out Post Inn coffee lounge, 52 Collins Street Melbourne, upon his return from the festival. He said, 'They were crowded all around me and they were actually jostling me. Look, it was a good song, but the other two songs were better!' He further explained that the other two songs had been written by people who were less popular, less well known and less competent at performing their songs. On other occasions, prior and subsequent to Easter 1974, O'Rourke also expressed the opinion that he had a dislike for songs that contained devices that were designed to grab the sympathy of listeners and described such devices as 'cheap and gimmicky' (O'Rourke, Personal Communication, 1974). Interestingly the winner of the competition that year, Chris Nichols, also won the competition again the following year with another song and another set of judges at the Australian National Folk Festival in Sydney during the Easter of 1975 at which I was present having entered a song of my own. One of the judges that year was Declan Affley and since his death in 1985 the competition has been known as 'The Declan Affley Memorial Song Writing Competition'. The following quotes, one from the cover of one of Eric Bogle's recordings and the other a transcript of a typical introduction for a public rendition of the song, both provide context in the form of portraying the environment in which the song emerged. Importantly, some of his historical comments are wildly incorrect even if their emotional context is understandable. A "Matilda" was the name given to the pack of an Australian Bushman or Swagman. To "Waltz Matilda" was to carry your pack around the bush. 50,000 soldiers of Australia died at Gallipoli in a stupid and pointless campaign, which was a lot for a small country like Australia. About the only thing achieved was a belated recognition that Australia was "growing up", she was becoming a nation in her own right.... Every April, a march is held on ANZAC DAY to commemorate the Gallipoli landings during the first World War, and the dead of the other wars. Australia takes it so seriously that the pubs are closed, the only day in the year this happens. Like all memorial parades it is both moving and yet somewhat pointless and pathetic. This song was written after observing one such parade. Liner notes for "Eric Bogle -- LIVE", Autogram ALLP-211, 1977. http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/matilda.html Bogle's claim of 50,000 Australian dead at Gallipoli, when the official toll for Australian Soldiers for the entire war stands at 59,354 is a wild exaggeration. Fewer than 5,000 Australian soldiers died at Gallipoli. It is interesting to note that almost as many Canadians, around 56,000, lost their lives during World War I and over 700,000 British died as well (Brochure, Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, 2000). Bogle also exaggerates where he implies that the pubs are closed for the entire day; in fact they open around midday and ANZAC day sees high alcohol consumption. Bogle himself addresses the issue of historical accuracy in an introduction provided in 'The All-Time Favourite Australian Song Book' published by Angus & Robertson in 1984. 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' was written in Canberra in 1972 (1971 according to Bogle during interviews and other sources) shortly after I had witnessed my first Anzac day march. Like all similar marches, remembrance days, wreath layings etc., I found it a bit pointless and pathetic, but strangely moving, especially seeing the old 'Diggers', some of whom could barely walk, trying to recapture the swank and discipline of 60 years ago, swinging along valiantly trying to march in step, denying arthritis, old age and tired old bones. It was sobering to watch the young present-day soldiers side by side with the old veterans, and reflect on the procession of wars, suffering and death that were represented by the three different generations of soldiers in that Anzac Day march. I wrote the song for two main reasons - as my own personal anti-war statement and as a tribute to the Diggers of Gallipoli. It is, I hope an honest and restrained comment on war. I would point out that the song contains a couple of historical inaccuracies. I was aware of that when I wrote it but I wanted to communicate feelings, emotion, and I believe history is the preserve of the historians, not poets. However, I make no apologies for anything contained in the song. I believed in everything I wrote then, and believe in it still. (Bogle, 1984). At the time 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' was written, the audiences most likely to be used as a testing ground for the song, the folk music enthusiasts who frequented the 'folk clubs' of Canberra, were not particularly nationalistic in their philosophies, and where folk enthusiasts in general were concerned, were more likely to be anti-war advocates, many being aligned with the peace movement of the 1960s. Therefore the short history lesson and explanations were possibly seen as necessary to provide context as too, is the word 'pointless' used twice, along-side words such as 'stupid' and 'pathetic', almost as disclaimers to ensure the label of 'Nationalist' could not be pinned anywhere, a label many Australian folk enthusiasts would not necessarily have taken to and perhaps one which would have sat uncomfortably with Bogle who had been resident in Australia for barely one year. This... in Australia, every year, we have... we celebrate... we remember "ANZAC DAY" - an' it's a very important day in Australia... the whole day is given over to remembering the soldiers who died in... all the wars and... the whole day - in Britain, in England, they have two minutes of silence once a year. It's important in Australia, because at Gallipoli, in 1915, for the first time, the Australian soldiers had Australian officers - before then, the Australian army had British officers. And... by this time, it was an all-Australian army, and they did quite well... and Australia was very proud of 'em. And they engendered a great sense of national pride, back home in Australia. The saying arose that Australia became a nation founded on the blood of our soldiers who died at Gallipoli. So... it was very important to Australia. We have... in Britain just now.. and THEN it was "our brave boys at Gallipoli"... in Britain, just before John [Munro] and I left three days ago, it was "our brave boys in the Falkland Islands." The jingoism always remains the same... it's just the wars that are different... but they seem stupid, hackneyed phrases... which demeans the soldiers... Right... I'll get off my pulpit... stop preaching and sing a song... I get quite heated about this subject... "Pumpe", Kiel, D, NDR-FM Broadcast May 25, 1982; transcribed by Manfred Helfert. http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/matilda.html (Bogle, Recorded Interview, 1982) According to Eric Bogle (Recorded Interview, 1999) he wrote 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' soon after the Canberra ANZAC (Australian New Zealand Army Corps) parade in 1971. He then attempted to sing the song at a folk club in Canberra but he had trouble remembering the words of this new and rather longish song, receiving a cool reception. This caused him to shelve the song for 3 years until a song-writing competition at the Australian National Folk Festival, held in Brisbane during the Easter of 1974 where the song received only third place, much to the annoyance of the audience, some of whom walked out of the venue in protest that it didn't win. Jane Herival was one of those who walked out of the venue and asked Bogle if she could learn and perform the song. As a result of this request, Maureen Cummuskey, a fellow resident of Canberra, managed to get a tape of Bogle singing the song to Herival just before she caught her plane back to England. Eric Bogle corroborates these events during a recorded interview on the 4 March 1999, which was broadcast on the following Monday afternoon (8 March 1999), on 3 MDR 97.1 FM, to an audience spread over metropolitan Melbourne and surrounding country regions. It was also broadcast on 3 or 4 subsequent occasions on the same broadcasting frequency. Note that, to maintain the flow of each of the following transcripts, the symbol * has been used as a substitute for the vocal sounds 'um' and 'aahh', while # has been used as a substitute for the words 'I mean', and ^ as a substitute for the words 'you know'. . . . * but this lady approached me and asked me for the lyrics * and the tune and I put it down on a tape for her and she took it across to England and she was at this Sidmouth festival, which is a big English festival, south of England and she was singing it in a pub and June Tabor, who was a, still is, a very well regarded English singer, heard her sing it and said 'I must have that song'. So Jane Herival then wrote to me and said 'can I give it to this lady called 'June Tabor', 'I'd never heard of 'June Tabor, I must admit, I said give the song to who you like, # that's what songs are for, I'm not precious about them. * then the rest, as they say (feigning American accent), is history. Herival provides more of the detail about this part of the history of the song and told me that upon her return to England, she learnt 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' from Cummuskey's tape and soon after went to stay with friends, Charlie and Liz Bateman who lived near the town of Bath. June Tabor happened also to be staying with the Batemans on this same weekend and they all went together to a local venue for a singing session where Herival sang the song. On the way back in the car, back to their house June said 'Can I ask you a favour?' and I said 'Well, I know what it is. But how about I ask Eric first, if that's OK, because I don't know if he's copyrighted it or what the set up is and I wrote to Eric, um, there was another connection, another mutual friend happened to call in the very following day actually, at Charlie and Liz's house, and he had Eric's address so I was able to write to Eric and ask if it would be alright to pass the words on to June because she wanted to record it. And he wrote and said 'Yes, that would be fine, to give any profits to charity, I've still got the letter, and he sent a copy of the words which were slightly different to the words that he had been singing on the tape which was interesting. So I passed the aah, words on to June and aah, she and I sort of corresponded about it and before any time at all she was singing the song, and it just cottoned on like wild fire, you know, that year, everybody started singing it in England. Jane Herival, 6 February, 2000. (Herival, 2000) The copy of the words Bogle sent to Herival, which differed from the taped version in minor ways, was written by Eric's hand. She couldn't be sure but thought that the recorded version had within it the line 'old bones stiff and sore' as the 5th line of the 5th verse while the later written version had 'all bent stiff and sore'. Herival said she wasn't familiar with the words 'green banks' in the first verse, she used the 'green basin' version. Herival recalled singing 'showered us with bullets' rather than 'chased us with bullets', and 'year follows year, those old men disappear' rather than 'year by year their numbers get fewer' but felt that both of these versions were supplied by Bogle, which was which, she couldn't say. On the evidence one would expect Herival to be more familiar with the first, taped version that she herself sang, rather than the words sent to her later, which went to Tabor. Perhaps more interesting is that Tabor's version has the ambience of a Maureen Cummuskey performance of the song, more so than any other performer I have heard. Unless this flavour was conveyed via Herival, then perhaps Tabor was also given the Cummuskey tape along with the later set of words and made a selection from the various sets of lyrics, adding her own innovations during the process. There can be no doubt that many of the innovations to be found in the Tabor version are her own. The 6th line of the 5th verse that Cummuskey sang still has the original 'tired old men from a tired old war' while Tabor is the first to use 'forgotten war'. Cummuskey also sang 'Murray's green basin' and 'lived the free life of the rover' in the first verse. More importantly Cummuskey sings 'reviving old dreams and past glories' where most others sing either 'renewing' or 'reliving' in this line. Bogle, interestingly, although confessing to adopting Tabors' 'forgotten wars' still consistently sings 'reviving' in the 5th verse. Several versions of the song are presented below: (Version 1) AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA As sung by Maureen Cummuskey, 1974. 5th. And now every April I sit on my porch, And I watch the parade pass before me, And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march, Reviving old dreams and past glory. And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore, The tired old men from a tired old war, And the young people ask, what are they marching for And I ask myself the same question. (Version 2) AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA As recorded by June Tabor, 1976. 1st. When I was a young man I carried me pack, And I lived the free life of the rover, From the Murry's green basin to the dusty outback, I waltzed my Matilda all over. Then in 1915 the country said 'Son Its time to stop rambling, there's work to be done.' And they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun. And they sent me away to the war. Chorus: And the band played 'Waltzing Matilda', As the ship pulled away from the quay. Amidst all the cheers, the flag waving and tears, We sailed off to Gallipoli. 2nd. How well I remember that terrible day Our blood stained the sand and the water. And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay, We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter. Johnny Turk, he was ready, he primed himself well, He chased us with bullets, he rained us with shell. And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell, Nearly blew us right back to Australia. Chorus: But the band played 'Waltzing Matilda', As we stopped to bury our slain, We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs, Then we started all over again. 3rd. Now those that were left, well we tried to survive, In a mad world of blood death and fire, And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive, Though around me the corpses piled higher Then a big turkish shell knocked me arse over head, And when I woke up in my hospital bed I saw what it had done and I wished I was dead, Never knew there was worse things than dying Chorus: For I'll go no more waltzing Matilda. All around the green bush far and near, For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs, No more waltzing Matilda for me. 4th. So they collected the cripples, The wounded and maimed, And they shipped us back home to Australia, The legless, the armless, the blind and insane, Those proud wounded heroes of Suva, And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay, I looked at the place where me legs used to be, And thank Christ there was no one there waiting for me To grieve and to mourn and to pity. Chorus: And the band played 'Waltzing Matilda', As they carried us down the gangway, But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared, Then they turned all their faces away. 5th. And now every April I sit on my porch, And I watch the parade pass before me, And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march, Renewing old dreams and past glory. And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore, The tired old men from a forgotten war, And the young people ask, what are they marching for And I ask myself the same question. Chorus: And the band played 'Waltzing Matilda', And the old men answer the call, But year by year, the numbers get fewer, Some day no one will march there at all. (Final chorus is sung to the tune of 'Waltzing Matilda') Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda, Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me? And their ghosts may be heard as you pass by the billabong, Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me? Bogle discusses the Tabor version during the interview mentioned above, broadcast on 3 MDR 97.1 FM on the 4 March 1999. EB ~ But * ^ the folk process is a wonderful thing, Graham, because at the time I gave that song out to Jane, of course I hadn't made any CDs or LPs as it was in those days, * and yet the song had never been recorded, yet it spread like a brush fire through the music community, just by word of mouth and that still happens a lot within the folk circles. So, ^, I've always found it a positive thing to give my songs to anybody who wants to listen to them and that's how they are still spread. Ah yeah, it's a good process (laugh). GHD ~ It is, so have you had versions come back to you, apart from the parodies, I don't know if you have copies of them, but you have versions that come back to you that actually change the meanings, or are wrong, or there are obvious mistakes? EB ~ Yeah. There are a few versions, quite a few versions like that, # on the other side, the song I sing now, 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda', and I still sing it, * is an amalgam of a lot of people's versions, (laughs). GHD ~ . . . . . . . I didn't mind some of the changes that * June Tabor made. EB ~ Exactly, # some of the words, she didn't change it radically, she just changed a word here and there. . . . and some other people and it just flowed better and it sounded better and I thought oh yeah, I should have written that (laughs). (Bogle, recorded interview, March, 1999) The version of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' that became most popular in Australia was the version recorded by the Bushwackers. There are two groups of musicians, bush bands, commonly known by the title of 'Bushwackers' in Australia, one of which was resident and active in Sydney during the 50s and 60s and the other band sprang into existence in Melbourne during the early 70s. It is the Melbourne group who called themselves 'The Original Bushwackers and Bullockies Bush Band', that recorded 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' significantly adding to its popularity in Australia. The Bushwackers' set of words came indirectly from a performer of folk songs, Phil Day, who was known to audiences of Melbourne folk venues and who had heard the song while an attendee of the same song writing competition at the 1974 National Folk Festival in Brisbane that Jane Herival had attended when 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' came third. Day learnt the song a few weeks after the festival by recording Bogle singing the song, among a number of other Bogle songs, at a party in North Fitzroy, Melbourne. According to Day's version of events, he gave the words of the song directly to the Bushwackers by giving the words to Dave Isom, a founding member of the Bushwackers, at the Outpost Inn at 52 Collins Street Melbourne. Phil Day could well have given the song to Dave Isom, however Isom left the Bushwackers well before they recorded the song and their version of events does not corroborate Day's version of events. Interestingly, it was at the Outpost Inn that both Tim O'Brien and I obtained 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' from Phil Day and it is possible he is actually recalling giving the words to either or both of us. I also remember sitting at a table at the Outpost Inn and altering my set of words to read 'Murray's green banks' from 'green basin' because I didn't understand what Bogle had meant by 'basin'. Both Day and I sang the song regularly at folk venues and festivals throughout subsequent years. One year later while living in the Sydney suburb of Balmain, I received a telephone call from Mic Slocum of the Bushwackers, who explained that he had heard that I knew the words to the song 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'. He said the band were considering including it on their current album and I offered to write down the words and post it to them. He said they needed it straight away and asked me to sing it down the telephone line so he could record it, which I did. By this time I had changed 'green banks' to 'clear waters' and I explained to Slocum that 'clear waters' was my own innovation and that the correct words were 'green banks', forgetting at the time that the correct word was actually 'basin'. It wasn't until after the telephone call ended and I was reflecting to the other residents at my home that in some ways a momentous event had just taken place, when I realized I may have left out one of the verses. I was unable to call them back to rectify the situation because I wasn't sure exactly from where the Bushwackers had called me, and no longer had any of their home telephone numbers. The key members of the Bushwackers at the time, Jan Wositzky, Mic Slocum and the newcomer to the band, Dobe Newton had varying degrees of memory as to the manner in which the words were procured, Wositzky's being the closest to the actuality. Phil Day's notion of being responsible for the Bushwacker lyrics is true, although not via the sequence of events that he had originally believed. The version that the Bushwackers recorded is descended from the North Fitzroy party version of 1974, collected by Phil Day, and possibly not significantly different to the version he would have sung at the song writing competition only weeks earlier. The version used by Herival, was collected by Cummuskey from Bogle in 1974 also, while the version Herival solicited from Bogle specifically for use by Tabor would have possibly been mid to late 1974 or early 1975. Wositzky had the following to say during an interview recorded on 14 February 2000, at the Dandenong-Ranges Folk Festival. Although Wositsky says 'we didn't know who Eric was, Slocum, explains that he lived in Canberra 'with Eric Bogle', further explaining that they didn't actually live in the same household but lived in Canberra during the same period. Wositzky ~ I think it would have been '75 * maybe going into '76. I'd have to look up exactly when we recorded the album that became known as 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' but what happened was this. I lived at St. Andrews, we were up there doing a rehearsal and planning the album and talking about it and sort of in discussion we realised we didn't really have a complete album as such and somebody in the room, one of the band members, said, 'hey look, I've heard about this Scottish bloke and he's written this apparently fantastic song about Anzac Day and it's called "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" '. So we literally said 'ok, that's what we'll call the album, how do we find the song?' Fair dinkum, and who ever it was in the band that knew about this rang the person, in Sydney I think it was, that had told him, and they sang it to him down the phone. And that's how come we got a different melody line to what Eric Bogle had 'cause we didn't know who Eric was and we'd never heard Eric Bogle sing the song, and we went into the studio. Mic Slocum, we put a microphone up to the telephone and Mic Slocum recorded... we recorded it. And we thought the best way to do this was with a piano. So we'd only ever heard the one person sing the wrong melody down the 'phone from Sydney, and we went and put a piano to it and that was it and we called the album 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' 'cause it was such a great title. We decided that before we'd even heard the song. True. GHD ~ So do you know who, the name of the person that was on the phone? Wositzky ~ No. GHD ~ Does Mic Slocum know? Wositzky ~ Mic might know. . . . . . . . . . . . . Wositzky ~ We didn't know one verse. I think you'll find one verse missing. And it's the verse about 'got his legs shot off' yeah, we didn't know that, we didn't hear that verse at all. Down the phone. We missed that one. Who ever . . . . didn't know it. So that didn't go on our recording. GHD ~ It's interesting, because I asked Mic about that, or Dobe, I forget which. I think it was Mic and he thought it was over the top and that they decided to leave it out. Wositzky ~ Dobe, at a point of time was utterly scathing about that verse. GHD ~ In favour of it, or . . ? Wositzky ~ No. No. No, about the overstatement of the line 'to hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs'. Dobe was, I remember Dobe was very scathing about that line, that it was so overstated. Mic Slocum, of the Bushwackers, when asked about the song via a telephone on the 20th of February 2000 at 9:15pm, responded with the following. GHD ~ Do you remember anything about the particular set of words that you used in your version? MS ~ Yes, I deliberately left out the middle verse because it was a bit much, it was too . . . . The one with the line about the guy getting his legs blown off because I thought it was too heavy. It just wasn't necessary to go that far. (Slocum, February, 2000) The following version was printed in the Bushwackers Australian Songbook edited by two of the band-members, Jan Wositzky and Dobe Newton. Note the minor differences in the first verse 'a pack' as opposed to Tabor's 'me pack', also 'a rover' instead of 'the rover', 'green banks' instead of 'green basin' and more noticeably 'There's no time for Roving' in the place of 'It's time to stop rambling' in Tabor's version. All subtle differences which do not affect the meaning of the lines to which they correspond. (Version 3) AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA 1st. When I was a young man I carried a pack and I lived the free life of a rover. From the Murray's green banks to the dusty out-back, I waltzed my Matilda all over. Then in 1915, the country said 'Son, There's no time for rovin' there's work to be done,' And they gave me a tin hat, and gave me a gun, And they sent me away to the war. 1st Chorus: And the band played 'Waltzing Matilda', As our ship pulled away from the quay And amidst all the cheers, the flag waving and tears, We sailed off for Gallipoli. The variations in the second verse of the Bushwacker version are also of a superficial nature in regard to the meaning of the lines. The main difference hinges around the sixth line where Tabor uses the word 'chased' and the Bushwackers have used the more standard 'showered us with bullets' with which Herival indicated a familiarity. 2nd. How well I remembered that terrible day When our blood stained the sand and the water, And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay, We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter. Johny Turk he was waiting, he'd primed himself well, He showered us with bullets, and rained us with shell, And in ten minutes flat, he'd blown us to hell: Nearly blew us right back to Australia. 2nd Chorus: And the band played 'Waltzing Matilda', As we stopped to bury the slain. We buried our and the Turks buried theirs, Then we started all over again. The main differences are the omission of the 3rd verse of the song, and three lines in what is usually the 5th verse of the song. The two versions of these three lines are best compared side by side. Tabor's version: Renewing old dreams and past glory. And the old men march slowly, All bent, stiff and sore, The tired old men from a forgotten war, Bushwackers' version Reliving old dreams and past glories. But the old men march slowly, Their bones stiff and sore, The tired old men from a tired old war, It is these lines, usually contained in the 5th verse, that indicates from which version a subsequent version may have descended. Other key pointers from the June Tabor version are indicated below, keeping in mind that even Bogle has adopted some of the Tabor innovations, as well as the innovations of others, in his own 'live' performances. Tabor's version: Murray's Green Basin. It's time to stop Rambling Chased us with bullets, Bush far and near, Proud wounded heroes of Suvla, Renewing old dreams and past glory, Year by year their numbers get fewer, Some day no one will march there at all. Bushwackers' version Murray's Green Banks. There's no time for rovin', Showered us with bullets, (3rd verse omitted) Brave wounded heroes of Suvla, Reliving old dreams and past glories, Year by year those old men disappear, Soon no one will march there at all. If we find all or most of the Tabor innovations in other versions of the song, we may presume that those versions are descended from Tabor's version, either directly or perhaps via other interceding versions. We may also presume likewise with versions containing characteristics only to be found in the Bushwacker version. The version of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' included in the Angus & Robertson publication, The All Time Favourite Australian Song Book, from which came the above Bogle introduction, on page 52 has the 'Murray's green banks' version of the 3rd line of the song. The third verse is included, as would be expected in a version where Bogle has presumably been consulted personally and its chorus has in it the line 'All around the wild bush far and free' introducing the adjective 'wild' where 'green' is usually used. The first line of the fourth verse is quite unusual where the word 'wounded' has been omitted and the line reads 'then they gathered the sick and the crippled and maimed, and sent us back home to Australia' instead of 'they collected the crippled the wounded and maimed and they shipped us back home to Australia.' This verse also had the word 'stumps' where 'place' is almost universally used in all other versions. I do however, remember the word 'stump' momentarily startling me when sung by a member of the audience during one of my concerts or a singing session in the mid 1970s because I recall quipping 'you stumped me' when immediately afterward I had a momentary memory loss of the rest of the chorus due to the distraction. The Angus & Robertson version had most interesting variations in the 5th verse. Note 'reviving' rather than 'renewing' or 'reliving old dreams and past glory' is the least of the differences to be found in the verse. (Version 4) AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA 5th. So every April my old comrades march, Reviving old dreams and past glory, And I push my wheelchair our onto the porch And watch the parade pass before me; The old men march slowly, old bones stiff and sore, Tired old men from a forgotten war, The young people ask: 'What are they marching for?' I ask myself the same question. 5th chorus: And the band plays 'Waltzing Matilda', The old men respond to the call, But as year follows year, more old men disappear, Someday, no-one will march there at all. The Tabor 'forgotten war' is present, and 'old bones stiff and sore' is so like 'all bone stiff and sore' suggests that perhaps the Cummuskey version is responsible for some of the Tabor innovations. Note the 5th chorus also has individual variations where the old men 'respond' as opposed to 'answer' the call. (Version 5) AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA The internet, now well past its embryonic stage, is rapidly becoming a common source for song lyrics. Already some web-sites are merely sourcing other sites for content and soon tracing the geographical chronology of a song will be a difficult and perhaps pointless exercise. Currently however, it is still possible to correlate a version with a location or affiliation. A web-site labelled Irish Jokes at an Alternate Web-Site, published on Telstra's 'Bigpond' server on the 1 of February 2000 by Irish expatriates whom although residing in Adelaide, Australia, where Eric Bogle himself resides, have failed to acknowledge Bogle as the composer of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'. Apart from mistakenly leaving out the word 'when' from the third verse, they appear to have used June Tabor's version word for word, including the use of the word 'chased' in the second verse, proud instead of 'brave', 'cripples' instead of 'crippled' (insignificant if it was the only Tabor flag), and 'renewing' rather than 'reliving' or 'reviving'. This version varied further with 'renewing old dreams of past glories' and not 'and past glories'. It also perfectly emulated Tabor's version of the three most significant lines. (http://users.bigpond.com/kirwilli/songs/Waltz%20Matilda.htm). An explanation for the exclusion of acknowledgement could be that the Furey brothers, very popular performers among the Irish, often sang Bogle songs without acknowledging him as the author. In a recorded interview with Mari Lowry on the 13th of February 2000 and broadcast on Saturday, 26 February 2000 on radio 3 MDR 97.1 FM, Mari, who had been travelling Ireland, related the following story. ML ~ Well I was staying with Tony O'Hara in Dublin and we went and saw. . . His band was playing support to the Fureys and we went and saw them afterwards and they were playing that song. It was hugely popular, the whole pub was singing along. GHD ~ By 'The Fureys', we mean Eddie and Finbar? ML ~ That's right, and George. I said to George Furey. 'That's a great song 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' you must thank Eric Bogle lots when you sing that song because I noticed that when they sang the song and it was widely applauded, they didn't mention the song writer and it always offended me. And he said 'Who?' and I said 'Eric Bogle' didn't he write the song originally?' and he went 'Humph, he might have'. And I was really shocked and it was sort of like 'who the hell are you reminding us who actually wrote the song', because I did hear that Eric Bogle actually hasn't received all the royalties from the many recordings of the song. Probably people's record companies not coming up with the goods. Eric Purdie, now resident in Melbourne, Australia, but who was sharing lodgings with the Furey brothers at the time, provides the direct connection between Tabor's version and the Fureys in a recorded interview on the 16 February, 2000 which was also broadcast on radio 3 MDR 97.1 FM on Saturday, 26 February 2000. The main gist of Purdie's discourse was that the Furey boys were characters open to a degree of 'hoodwinkery' in the cause of furthering their interests in entertainment and resultory kudos and income. He spoke at length about Eddie, Finbar and George's father, Ted Furey. Purdie knew Ted well and told a story about Ted at the age of 70 procuring old fiddles in Birmingham via elaborate negotiation techniques which would secure a cheap price for the instrument which Ted would then resell on the continent, in Germany and Denmark, for a significant profit. At the conclusion of his concerts he explained that the instrument he had been playing had belonged to his grandfather who gave it to him on his death bed. Eric Purdie: ~ Yeah, I was. I lived in a house, I shared a house with Eddie Furey and the man who owned the house was an old Glasgow man called Harry McNulty and his son Eddie McNulty and Harry just died about two weeks ago they had a big funeral and I'm pleased to say that the boys went over for the funeral. I was actually living in Coventry at the time. The Furey's were there because it was in the heart of England, and they could do gigs, you could play Coventry, you could do Birmingham, you could play London. So Cove' was a good place. There was a lot of money in Coventry at that time, the car industry was going well. There were lots of Irish and Scottish people and people from all over there trying to make a quid in Cov' and so, the song came there. The first person I heard singing it was * Alex Campbell and he got it from June Tabor. But I'm not quite sure how he got it, I don't know if she sang to him or . . . . . * So Alec brought it to Coventry and I had a mate of mine, Rab Craig, who was his Roadie, he'd roadied for him for years and years and the boys realised right away, and so he sang it 'round the clubs there and I think Eddie Furey started singing the song * 'caus Finbar never sang, he was just a straight piper. Eddie started singing the song. And * I remember him singing it one night, but because it was such a popular song, everybody wanted to sing the chorus and I remember him stopping halfway through and the guy going 'For Jesus Christ, it's my song, will you stop, I sing it myself, you are putting me off', so he just sang it on his own 'cause everybody just related to it so well.' Being such a, you know, being such a powerful song. GHD ~ So it was quite well known, popular even by that, and that was still in . . What year would that be? Roughly. Eric Purdie: ~ I came to Australia in '76 so it must have been in '75 just before I came, maybe '74, end of '74 but everybody wanted to sing it. It was a bit like 'The Streets of London'. It was one of those songs. It just 'woof' everybody wanted to sing it. . . . . There was another guy, Gib Todd, and he sort of popularised the song too. . . . . Gib came from Peebles where Bogle comes from. A set of lyrics obtained from another Irish based web-site, labelled 'Joe Batts Arm'. Published on the 'Lycos' server on the 1st of February 2000, also failed to acknowledge Eric Bogle as the composer of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'. They too appear to have used June Tabor's version - basically word for word - but there were small alterations, as well as typographical errors and what may be misspellings and spellings of mispronunciations. The verse of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda', which consistently contains the most individualisations, is the 5th verse, numbered as 3rd below due to the omission of two previous verses in the collected version. Verses 1 and 2 in the collected version had no significant variations to Tabor's verses 1 and 3 worth inclusion here. (Version 6) AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA 3rd. So now every April I sit on my porch And I watch the parade pass before me I see my old comrades, how proudly they march Renewing the dreams of past glory I see the old men all tired, stiff and sore Those poor lonely heroes from a forgotten war And the young people ask 'What are they marching for?' And I ask myself the same question 3rd Chorus: And the band played 'Waltzing Matilda' And the old men still answer the call But year after year our number get fewer Some day no one will march there at all (Final chorus is sung to the tune of 'Waltzing Matilda') 'Waltzing Matilda' 'Waltzing Matilda' Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me And their ghosts can be heard as they pass by the Billabong Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me http://members.tripod.lycos.nl/JoeBattsArm/waltzing_matilda.html An additional alteration in this version is 'poor lonely heroes' instead of 'tired old men' in what would be the 5th verse if they hadn't left out verses 2 and 4. The verse they have retained ironically, the original 3rd verse, is the very verse that the 'Bushwackers' have deliberately left out of their recorded version. (Version 7) AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA Another web-publication, 'Johan's Tavern' on Yahoo's 'Geocities' server which makes the lyrics available in a downloadable microsoft word document, also lacks authorial acknowledgement. This particular version also had 1914 as the year in the initial verse instead of Bogle's 1915 and the line 'forgotten heroes of a forgotten war' using one of Bogle's poetic devices but not his words where Bogle wrote 'tired old men from a tired old war', repeating the same adjectives for both parts of the line (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/4269/johan/song/song_A0002.htm) (Version 8) AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA The web-site dedicated to popular folk band of the 1980s, The Pogues also doubled up on the word 'forgotten' in the 6th line of the 5th verse where they sing 'forgotten heroes from a forgotten war'. This web-site did acknowledge Bogle and explains that the recording of the song is the only single the band released under the name 'Pogue Mahone'. (Version 9) AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA Another web-site, Judes Music Room which seems to have taken on the task of supplying a multitude of lyrics and audio, have without any acknowledgement to Eric Bogle supplied a close cousin of the version above, still the Tabor version denoted by the use of 'rambling' in the first verse, yet with other alterations. This time they have retained 'showered' from Eric's version but transfixed the word with 'rained' in the same line of the second verse. Other differences include the spelling of 'Quay', spelt correctly earlier in the song but which in the 4th verse as 'Key' is classic, matched only by the, perhaps, typographical error in the third verse where it gives the impression Australian diggers 'burned' their dead. The connection with the version from Johan's Tavern is clear by the first line of the 3rd verse which states 'those who were living' instead of Bogle's and Tabor's 'Those who were left'. The connection is further confirmed with the use of the word 'heroes' also not used by Bogle or Tabor, although both the Joe Batts Arm web-site and Johan's Tavern web-site versions have 'poor lonely heroes' and the one below has 'weary old heroes'. Less significantly they both use 'amid' as opposed to 'amidst'. So each of these are descendants of Tabor's version and one a descendant of the other, none of which mention June Tabor or acknowledge Eric Bogle. 1st. Now when I was a young man and I carried my pack and I lived the free life of the rover, From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback, I waltzed my Matilda all over. Then in 1915 my country said, "Son, It's time to stop rambling, there's work to be done." And they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun, And they sent me away to the war. 1st Chorus: And the band played Waltzing Matilda, As the ships pulled away from the quay, And amid all the tears, flag waving and cheers, We sailed off to Galipolli. 2nd. And how I remember that terrible day, How our blood stained the sand and the water, And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay, We were butchered like lambs to the slaughter. Johnnie Turk was ready, oh he primed himself well, He rained us with bullets and he showered us with shell, And in five minutes flat we were all blown to hell, Nearly blew us all back home to Australia. 2nd Chorus: But the band played Waltzing Matilda, As we stuck to bury our slain, We burned ours and the Turks buried theirs, And we started all over again. 3rd. Those who were living just tried to survive In a mad world of blood, death and fire, And for ten weary weeks, I kept myself alive, While around me the corpses piled higher. Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head, And when I awoke in my hospital bed, And saw what it had done and I wished I was dead, Never knew there were worse things than dying, 3rd Chorus: For no more I'll go Waltzing Matilda, All 'round the green bush far and near For to hump tent and pegs a man needs both legs, No more Waltzing Matilda for me. 4th. They collected the crippled, the wounded, the maimed, And they shipped us back home to Australia. The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane, Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla And as our ship pulled in to Circular Key, And I looked at the place where my legs used to be, I thanked Christ there was no one there waiting for me To grieve and to mourn and to pity. 4th Chorus: And the band played Waltzing Matilda, As they carried us down the gangway But nobody cheered, they just stood there and stared, And turned all their faces away. 5th. So now every April, I sit on my porch, And I watch the parade pass before me, And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march, Renewing their dreams of past glory. I see the old men all tired, stiff and sore, The weary old heroes of a forgotten war. And the young people ask "What are they marching for?" And I ask myself the same question. 5th Chorus: And the band played Waltzing Matilda, And the old men still answer the call, But year after year, the numbers get fewer... Some day none will march there at all. (Final chorus is sung to the tune of 'Waltzing Matilda') Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda Who'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me. http://home.neo.rr.com/jude/lyrics/AndBandWaltzingMatilda.htm By the 80s Bogle's own version (below) used many of the Tabor innovations, note 'rambling' in the first verse, but also note 'far and free' in the 3rd chorus, not to be found in Tabor's who sings 'far and near' as do all the English and Irish versions. Nor is it to be found in the version recorded by the Bushwacker's who left out the verse that would have contained the flag. (Version 10) AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA (Eric Bogle) 1st. Now when I was a young man I carried me pack And I lived the free life of the rover. From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback, Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over. Then in 1915, my country said, "Son, It's time you stop ramblin', there's work to be done." So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun, And they marched me away to the war. 1st Chorus: And the band played "Waltzing Matilda," As the ship pulled away from the quay, And amidst all the cheers, the flag waving, and tears, We sailed off for Gallipoli. 2nd. And how well I remember that terrible day, How our blood stained the sand and the water; And of how in that hell that they call Suvla Bay We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter. Johnny Turk, he was waitin', he primed himself well; He showered us with bullets, and he rained us with shell -- And in five minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell, Nearly blew us right back to Australia. 2nd Chorus: But the band played "Waltzing Matilda," When we stopped to bury our slain, Well, we buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs, Then we started all over again. 3rd. And those that were left, well, we tried to survive In that mad world of blood, death and fire. And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive Though around me the corpses piled higher. Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head, And when I woke up in me hospital bed And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead -- Never knew there was worse things than dying. 3rd Chorus: For I'll go no more "Waltzing Matilda," All around the green bush far and free -- To hump tents and pegs, a man needs both legs, No more "Waltzing Matilda" for me. 4th. So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed, And they shipped us back home to Australia. The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane, Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla. And as our ship sailed into Circular Quay, I looked at the place where me legs used to be, And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me, To grieve, to mourn and to pity. 4th Chorus: But the band played "Waltzing Matilda," As they carried us down the gangway, But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared, Then they turned all their faces away. 5th. And so now every April, I sit on my porch And I watch the parade pass before me. And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march, Reviving old dreams of past glory, And the old men march slowly, all bones stiff and sore, They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war And the young people ask "What are they marching for?" And I ask meself the same question. 5th Chorus: But the band plays "Waltzing Matilda," And the old men still answer the call, But as year follows year, more old men disappear Someday, no one will march there at all. (Final chorus is sung to the tune of 'Waltzing Matilda') Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda. Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me? And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong, Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me? Lyrics as performed by Eric Bogle & John Munro, "Pumpe", Kiel, D, NDR-FM Broadcast May 25, 1982; transcribed by Manfred Helfert. Copyright Larrikin Music, Ltd. (Bogle, 1982) (Version 11) AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA Many web-sites provide little or no detail other than the lyrics of the songs however the version below was prefaced by the following words which provide a sense of context for the impact the song can have on individuals. When I was 18, I went and watched my Grandfather march through Sydney in the Anzac Day march. I vividly remember a band playing "THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA" and took a serious look at the old diggers who were gathered around. Listening to the stories and looking at the old photo's being passed around, made me realise that there is more to war than just winning and losing, killing and what battles have been fought. There is the human side, the sadness of seeing your brother, father and friends killed, the anguish of seeing your country invaded, and the desire to live when it seems most unlikely. This song made me see that, so to the author, Eric Bogle, and to the unknown band on that day, I say thank you. http://www.iol.net.au/~conway/ww1/band.html (Version 12) AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA The version performed by the Dubliners, popular Irish folk band from the 60s is descended from the Tabor version although 'rambling' is spelt 'rembling' by the publishers of their web-site who acknowledge Bogle as author and Larrikin Music Ltd. as holder of the copyright. Other changes include 'Oh, twell' in the 2nd verse which also transposes 'rained' and 'showered' in the 6th line. In the 3rd and 4th verses changes may be attributed to poor transcription, where the word 'the' in 'the hump tent and pegs' of the chorus is unlikely to have been sung as such and 'faced' in the following chorus is obviously a typographical error, suggesting the 'e' in 'rembling' may also have a similar reason for existence or perhaps have been borrowed from the word 'heros' later in the text. In the telling 5th verse we can relegate 'the' in 'the proudly they march' the status of mistake but 'tart' in 'all tart, stiff and sore' is most likely a genuine lyrical variation possibly instigated by The Dubliners themselves and they use the 'weary old heroes' innovation. 1st. When I was a young man I carried me pack And I lived the free life of the rover From the Murry's green basin to the dusty outback I waltzed my Matilda all over Then in nineteen-fifteen me country said "Son It's time to stop rembling, there's work to be done" So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun And they sent me away to the war 1st Chorus: And the band played Waltzing Matilda When the ship pulled away from the quay And midst all the cheers, flag waving and tears We sailed off for Gallipoli 2nd. Oh, 't well I remember that terrible day When our blood stained the sand and the water And how in the hell they called Suvla bay We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter Johnny Turk, he was ready, he primed himself well He rained us with bullets and he showered us with shell And in five minutes flat we were all blown to hell Nearly blew us back home to Australia 2nd Chorus: And the band played Waltzing Matilda When we stopped to bury all slain Well, we buried ours and the Turks buried theirs Then it started all over again 3rd. All those that were living just tried to survive In that mad world of blood, death and fire And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive While around me the corpses piled higher Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head And when I awoke in me hospital bed And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead I never knew there was worse things than dyin' 3rd Chorus: And no more I'll go Waltzing Matilda All around the green bush, far and near For the hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs No more waltzing Matilda for me 4th. They collected the wounded, the crippled, the maimed And they shipped us back home to Australia The armless, the legless, the blind men, the insane Those proud, wounded heros of Suvla And when the ship pulled at the Circular Quay I looked at the place where me legs used to be And thank Christ there was no one there waiting for me To grieve and to mourn and to pity 4th Chorus: And the band played Waltzing Matilda When they carried us down the gangway Oh, nobody cheered, they just stood there and stared Then they turned all their faced away 5th. Oh, now every April I sit on my porch And I watch the parade pass before me I see my old comrades, the proudly they march Renewing their dreams of past glories I see the old men, all tart, stiff and worn Those weary old heros of a forgotten war And the young people ask "What are they marching for?" And I ask myself the same question 5th Chorus: And the band plays Waltzing Matilda And the old men still answer the call But year after year their number get fewer Someday no one will march there at all (Final chorus is sung to the tune of 'Waltzing Matilda') Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billibong So who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me Written by Eric Bogle, (c) Larrikin Music, performed by The Dubliners http://www.martinic.nl/tale/songbook/band_played_waltzing_matilda.htm List of 5.6 Quite clearly, the 5th verse varies the most throughout the entire history of this song, particularly the 6th line which has at least eight different variations. a) Tired old men from a tired old war ~ Cummuskey 1974 b) Tired old men from a forgotten war ~ Tabor 1976 c) Tired old men from a tired old war ~ Bushwackers 1978 d) Tired old men from a forgotten war ~ Angus & Robertson 1984 e) Tired old men from a forgotten war ~ Irish Jokes Alternate web-site 1999 f) Those poor lonely heroes from a forgotten war ~ Joe Batts Arm web-site 1999 g) The forgotten heroes of a forgotten war ~ Johan's Tavern web-site 1999 h) The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war ~ Pogues web-site 1999 i) The weary old heroes of a forgotten war ~ Jude's Music Room web-site 1999 j) They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war ~ Bogle, May 1982 k) Tired old heroes from a forgotten war ~ Conway web-site 1999 l) Those weary old heroes of a forgotten war ~ Dubliners 1999 If we examine the above examples we might conclude that the Conway web-site (11) may have been taken from the Bogle transcript (10) which itself, interestingly, is a descendant of the Tabor version(2). Jude's Music Room (9) may have transcribed a set of lyrics from a performance or recording of the Dubliners (12). An important thing to remember here is that if one performer alters a line in a certain way it may also occur to another performer to make the same change independently of each other. The high number of variations of the 6th line of the 5th verse suggests to me that of all the lines in the song perhaps this is the line which evokes the most emotions in each of the performers, the line which sums up the sentiments of the entire song. In other words, this line appears to be closely associated with the essence of the song and although many performers have seen fit to alter the words of this line, they have not altered the meaning or sentiment even one degree from the version they have emulated. Significantly, this equally applies to all the other changes made. Parodies of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda': Parodies are a form of extension of a song that don't necessarily require retention of the essence of the song it feeds off. Some parodists draw pleasure from shadowing the original lyrics as closely as they can, as can be seen in this first example of parodies resulting from 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'. Tony Miles, who wrote the parody in 1979, the year following Bogle's recording of the song, is an accomplished and recognised songwriter in his own right. Most interestingly, even from the parody, we may see which of the versions was used as a model for the work and again by examining the 6th line of the verse which we number as the 5th in the original (3rd here), we see the Miles version is taken from one that never left Australia. (Version 13) AND THE BAND PLAYED 'AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA' (Parody by Tony Miles of Brisbane). Tune: "And The Band Played 'Waltzing Matilda'" by Eric Bogle I solicited this version of Tony's parody directly from Tony via phone, and received this set of words with accompanying notes via e-mail. The accompanying notes were basically the patter Miles used to introduce the song during the 1980s which are recorded on his 'Australia Through and Through' tape. Just so you have the right background to this parody. When Eric wrote the original I thought it was a great song and I still do. The trouble was that when I began to tour and imagined I was on the brink of great fame and fabulous wealth, 'The Band' had become a bit of a block-buster and Eric a star. At every gig I played someone would sing it without fail. Added to this was the fact that Eric was living in Brisbane (where Miles also resided) at the time and the first question I was always asked was "do you know Eric Bogle?" When I responded that he was a mate of mine (he was, after all, only Eric), I was suspected of being a name dropper. A few just refused to believe me. And so for a while I began to feel that I was doomed to live in the shadow of Eric and that's why I wrote the song (parody). As it has happened, history confirmed my fears. When people talk about me these days it's usually -"What ever happened to .....um......what was his name?' As I said at the beginning, great to hear from you. Keep in touch. Yours in obscurity, Tony Miles. 5 February, 2000. (Miles, 2000) 1st. When I was a young man and played a guitar I lived the free life of a rover. From Brisbane's green river to dusty folk clubs I waltzed my old Martin all over. And at each club I played, the people said 'Son, We do like your songs', but when I was done They'd leap on the stage saying "Now I'll sing one" And this is the song that they'd sing. 1st Chorus: 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda', Then the audience soon forgot me And amidst all the tears, flag waving and cheers, I'd slip to the loo for a pee. 2nd. How well I remembered that terrible day, How my blood boiled much hotter than water. For up to that time I'd been well on the way To winning the publican's daughter. Johnny Turk, he was singing and sang the song well, I showered him with insults and truth is to tell, I wished Eric Bogle had gone straight to hell And never had come to Australia. 2nd Chorus: 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' was such a well loved refrain that when Johnny Turk had finished the berk Started all over again. 3rd. And now every April I sit on my porch And watch my past life pass before me. And I wished I had written that rambling song That brought Eric Bogle such glory. And the songs what I wrote, I don't sing them no more They're tired old songs from a tired old bore And the young people ask 'What did he write them for?' And I ask myself the same question. 3rd Chorus: 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' - How the singers respond to that call, And as year passes year all my hopes disappear That no one will sing it at all (Miles, 2000). In the light of the above message which accompanied the e-mail that contained the parody, If I were to perform the parody in the future, I would add the following chorus, so that the song would follow the original form where the actual chorus of 'Waltzing Matilda' is sung at the end and thus we have an example of the process of altering a song to suit one's tastes. (Final chorus is sung to the tune of 'Waltzing Matilda') And these words may be heard as you pass by your local pub, 'What ever happened to old what's his name?' Graham H. Dodsworth. 7 February, 2000. (Version 13.2) AND THE BAND PLAYED 'AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA' (Parody by Tony Miles of Brisbane). This version of Miles' parody was found during a web-search for 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' and although there can be no doubt that this parody has been taken directly from Tony Miles parody, Miles is not acknowledged anywhere and the initials RG have been placed at the bottom of the text. There have been some interesting although minor alterations to the Miles original. 'Dusty folk bar' in this version rhymes better than 'dusty folk club' in the version supplied my Miles himself. Despite this, the last line of the 1st verse in the subsequent version is clumsy and misses the obvious rhyme where 'sung' would have been more logical to rhyme with 'done' than 'sang me' or Miles' 'sing'? More interesting is the alteration in the final verse where once again the most interesting line is the original 6th line of the 5th verse. Where Miles was executing a close parody of the version with which he was most familiar 'tired old men from a tired old war' by writing 'tired old songs from a tired old bore' the version below seems unaware of the Australian version of this line, and therefore the significance of Miles' cleverness with parodying the line, and possibly hasn't noticed or cared that they have altered the line to 'tiring old songs from a tiring old bore'. 1st. When I was a young man I played the guitar And I lived the free life of the rover From Brisbane's green river to each dusty folk bar I waltzed my old Martin all over But in each club I played in the people said, 'Son We do like your singing' But when I was done They would leap on the stage saying now I'll sing you one" And this is the song that they sang me: 1st Chorus: And the band played Waltzing Matilda And the audience forgot about me So amidst all the tears, flag waving and cheers I went to the loo for a pee. 2nd. How well I remember that terrible day How my blood boiled much hotter than water For up to that time I'd been well on me way To wooing the publican's daughter. Johnny Turk he was there and he sang the song well I rained him with insults and truth is to tell I wished Eric Bogle had gone straight to hell And never had come to Australia. 2nd Chorus: And the band played Waltzing Matilda It was such a well-loved refrain And when Johnny Turk was finished, the berk Went and sang it all over again. 3rd. So now every April I sits on me porch And I watch my past life go before me And I wish I had written that rambling song That brought Eric Bogle such glory The songs that I wrote, I don't sing 'em no more They're tiring old songs from a tiring old bore And when young people ask 'What did he write them for?' I ask myself the same question. 3rd Chorus: And the band played Waltzing Matilda And the singers respond to the call As year after year all my hopes disappear That no one will sing it at all RG Digital Tradition Mirror http://back.numachi.com/cgi-bin/rickheit/dtrad/lookup?ti=BANDPLY2&tt=BANDPLAY Other parodies include, 'And The Band Played Appropriate Music', 'And The Band Played The National Anthem' and 'And The Band Played Star Spangled Banner', the latter of which is mainly a parody of the title alone and has an original tune. The writer of this item acknowledges his song was inspired by Eric Bogle's song and maintains the theme of depicting 'the ravages of war' whilst highlighting certain ironies and futilities. Parodies, although blatant in their association with the original, do not necessarily hold sacred the subject or essence of the original. Sometimes it is the object of the parody to ridicule the subject, or point out that the original subject is either over-done or beyond its relevance. At other times the parodist is merely taking advantage of a well known tune to create some humour or cashing in on the popularity of one song to make a point of their own in another. Besides Tony Miles' close lyrical parallels, his parody is clever in that it is careful not to denigrate either Bogle or the song. More importantly, although humorous, the song also doesn't denigrate the subject of Bogle's song and still manages to make a point of its own. The fact that others also choose to sing Miles' parody is a demonstration that the sentiments expressed by the parody also hold folk value. The following example, from the United Kingdom, has little relevance to the originating song and is apparently based upon a joke told to its parodist, Avram Grumer, by another individual, Harold Feld. It does, however use the tune and the form of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda', including the use of the tune of 'Waltzing Matilda' for the final chorus. (Version 14) AND THE BAND PLAYED APPROPRIATE MUSIC (Parody by Avram Grumer - 1991). Tune: "And The Band Played 'Waltzing Matilda'" by Eric Bogle 1st. There once was a kingdom with many young knights; They were valiant, and all in fine fettle. And they wished to compare all their relative mights In a contest that would try their mettle. So they whipped out their swordarms, and sweated and strained To lift up the weights they'd attached with much pain. I just said they were valiant, not that they had brains. And you know what I'm meaning by "swordarm." Chorus: And the band played appropriate music, While the menfolk did tear at their hair. The children waved flags, and the women did swoon, As they saw what was happening there. 2nd. Now the first knight, he lifted five pounds off the stage. He was feeling quite macho and studly. The second knight called for ten pounds in a rage, And the contest began to get ugly. The third called for twenty, the fourth for still more. The fifth said he'd give all the others what for. And the crowd's steady cheering increased to a roar. This was almost as much fun as bloodshed. Chorus: And the band played appropriate music, While the menfolk did tear at their hair. The children waved flags, and the women did swoon, As they saw what was happening there. 3rd. Now of course no mere stickjock can outshine his king, So the monarch did enter the fray. He parted his robes, and he pulled out his thing, And he called on the queen, for to sway His lusts and his passions with all of her charm, As a hundred-pound weight he strapped to his swordarm. When he lifted it up, the crowd cried with alarm, For his scepter was truly majestic. Chorus: And the band played appropriate music, While the menfolk did tear at their hair. The children waved flags, and the women did swoon, As they saw what was happening there. (Final chorus is sung to the tune of 'Waltzing Matilda') Testing their swordarms, testing their swordarms. The menfolk did swoon at the sight they had seen, While the children waved flags, and the women tore out all their hair, The royal musicians played "God Save The Queen." http://members.xoom.com/Aiden_Tall/filk/appropriate.html (Version 15) AND THE BAND PLAYED THE NATIONAL ANTHEM (Parody by Roger Burton-West - 1994). This next example has used Bogle's tune to make an entirely different point, this time there is no humour intended and Bogle is freely acknowledged for the tune. It is also worthy of note, not withstanding the title of the parody below, that the national anthem of the United States of America has been inserted in substitution for 'Waltzing Matilda' which some regard as a fitting national anthem for Australia. Tune: "And The Band Played 'Waltzing Matilda'" by Eric Bogle 1st. G C G Em When I was a young boy I dreamed of the stars, G D G And the velvet of endless black night. C G Em And America was racing to the Moon and to Mars, G D G And a bloodless war they seemed to fight. D C G Then Apollo Six burned in electrical fire, D C G White, Grissom and Chaffee in funeral pyre, C G Em And they'd said it was safe, but then they were proved liars, G D G But they started again just the same. 1st Chorus: C G And the band played the national anthem, D As they lowered them into the grave. C The heroes had died, G C We stood by and cried, G D G But the next ones we hoped we could save. 2nd. The Russians were racing and they had done well, With their probes and their sputniki beeping. They had landed their robots on Venus' hot hell, And the Moon while the Rangers were creeping Then four Salyut crewman were scattered and burned, Not even enough for a funeral urn, And they said they were sorry, and next time they'd learn, Not that /that/ helped the heroes at all. 2nd Chorus: And the band played the national anthem As they put up the monument stone But since that dark day KOCMOC had to pay And we raced for the moon all alone. And we got to the moon, but we threw it away, For a few precious rocks, nothing more. Then they planned a new ship, that could just about pay, And the world watched and waited in awe. But they cut that proud ship till she hardly could fly, And when she was built they told outrageous lies, And it was not surprising that men had to die, Ere they found out that she was no good. 3rd Chorus: And the band played the national anthem, As the ship came apart in the air. And Feynman said "Take Heed of your mistakes!" But he's gone now and nobody cares. 3rd. And whatever is next there are bound to be dead, It was never a safe way to travel. But if we give up now we're easily led, By the prophets of meaningless babble. And though it's not safe we must try it once more, For now we need space more than ever before, And once we're in orbit the moon's at our door, And we have to go back there some day. 4th Chorus: And the band will play national anthems And they'll honour the valiant slain For though we are down And stuck to the ground We must get into orbit again. Last Chorus: [Optional ending: sing quietly] Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming...? http://www.terindell.com/asylum/filk/other/burton-west/anthem.txt (Burton-West, 1994) (Version 16) AND THE BAND PLAYED STAR SPANGLED BANNER (by H. Paul Shuch - 1999). lyrics and music copyright (c) 1999 by H. Paul Shuch Inspired by And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, (c) 1986 by Eric Bogle This song does not use the tune of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda', and although Shuch uses the theme, he is focused clearly on the sentiments, more so than the poetry, at first appearances. The web-site that offered this example promised an audio file in the near future and perhaps the audio file is necessary to support the poetry, for the piece to be considered palatable artistically. The only connection that can be detected with the admission of a connection is the recurrent last line in each of the verses, which in some verses seem odd and out of place. 1st. As I watch the parade pass the river I remember the day that I marched off to war. I was one of the lucky, I shiver, Who never once stopped to ask "What's it all for?" The walking unscathed. But the scars they run deep, And they come back to haunt you whenever you sleep Or the band plays the Star Spangled Banner. Chorus: And the band played the Star Spangled Banner While the citizens watched with their heads held up high. And they sang in a dignified manner, Not a tear for the boys they were sending to die. For the President said we'd stand up to aggression, And keep the world free for democracy -- And the band played the Star Spangled Banner. 2nd. It was twenty nine years last September I came home a hero, a villain, a fool. I could neither forget nor remember, Not even a weapon, but only a tool. Too wakeful to watch and too weary to weep, Too troubled to talk and no counsel to keep -- As the band played the Star Spangled Banner. Insert Chorus 3rd. We all were so young and so eager: Untroubled, immortal, impervious to pain, Never hearing the voice that runs deeper, Never knowing we've done this again and again. And they still march to battle, a promise to keep, And their faces still haunt me whenever I sleep, Or the band plays the Star Spangled Banner. The above chapter supports the possibility that The Albury/Derby Ram chain of songs may well be one such example where the original song has long since been lost but the parody has survived. Considering the popularity of parodies, it is not far fetched to imagine a scenario where the original tree dies due to rigidity within an environment of evolving cultures and political climate, and its less sanctimonious, more flexible branches take root for the duration of a more substantial expansion of time (the latter parody above would be an exception, being more like parasitic mistletoe). Further evidence that 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' is a song that has been embraced widely is to be found in many places on the World Wide Web. Below we see Australian Rock Band Midnight Oil found it an apt song for a radio show in the United States of America while 'The Musical Express web-site describe Bogle as 'one of the most important songwriters of the decade'. Another performer of folksong, Danny Doyle includes a quote from the New York Times on his web-site. Excerpts from the World Wide Web of the Internet: Who wrote "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda"? "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda was written by Scottish/Australian folk singer Eric Bogle. It was played several times by the Oils when they appeared on US radio in October 1996 and appeared on the Finnish(?) release of Surf's Up Tonight. http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/dnetdkdk/deadheart/faq/album_faq/miscellaneous.htm Album FAQ - Miscellaneous From the web-site of the Australian popular culture band, 'Midnight Oil'. Internationally known folksinger, originally from Peebles, Scotland. Eric currently lives in Australia. He is best known for the award winning "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda". Other songs he's written include "No Man's Land (The Green Fields of France)", "Leaving Nancy, and the list goes on. "One of the most important songwriters of the decade" The New Musical Express "A social commentator, a comic raconteur and an earthy sentimentalist all rolled into one" The New York Times (Danny Doyle's Web-site) John McDermott a one-time pretender to authorship of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' according to Bogle (Bogle, 2000) includes glowing praise of the song. The web-site still appears to attribute part of the copyright to McDermott but the credits are ambiguous and may relate to the entire web-site. Then notation is included as a preface to the main content of the web-page provided below. Eric Bogie [sic], John McDermott, and Bobby Edwards; Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency, LTD. (CMRRA); Copyright Control/ASCAP In August of '95, the Incountry group motored into Omaha to help the Nebraska Vietnam vets celebrate another reunion. Marty Heuer and Gary Lee came along to help out in the absence of Toby Hughes and a couple of the grunts. Bull Durham and Saul Broudy were there, and Chip Dockery. I love jam sessions and there were plenty of those separate and apart from the stage presentations. In the course of the jamming, Chip sang And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda. I had never heard the song before. It's a haunting tune and the lyrics strike like a deadly arrow deep into the warrior's heart. The song is about a young Australian who gets conscripted and sent off to fight World War I. At the blood bath of Gallipoli a fate worse than death finds him. The song affected me profoundly. I persuaded Chip to sing it into my little hand-held microcassette tape recorder. Later, we exchanged correspondence to assure that I had the words down the way he sang them. The similarities between the story in the song and what happened to so many of America's Vietnam veterans are powerfully moving. ". . . The young people ask what the hell are they marching for; and I ask myself the same question. . ." http://www.ctaz.com/~dikjonas/album6/text6/matilda.html (McDermott, 2000) (Version 17) SCORN OF THE WOMEN (by Michael Thomas). Unmistakably inflamed by Bogle's 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda', the Australian band, 'Weddings, Parties, Anything' performed the following song written by Michael Thomas. Note the clear reference to songs about 'Waltzing Matilda' in the chorus and the how close the first line of the 2nd verse, 'Well I remember the day . . .', follows the corresponding line in Bogle's original, 'How well I remember that terrible day' and later in the same verse the further crude attempt at parody perhaps 'For to train in the camps, a man needs both lamps' to correspond with Bogle's 'For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs'. The song is almost an answer or criticism of Bogle's song, at the least it points out that there were other forgotten heroes of the war that haven't been sung about. SCORN OF THE WOMEN Michael Thomas 1st. I remember respectfully, like others before me All those who fell in the war And I heard you singing songs of lamentation But I don't wish to hear them no more "What did you do in the time of the war?" Is a question asked by everyone Well, I stood in the line, my screwdriver in hand Making aircraft out at Laverton Chorus: So don't sing no songs about Waltzing Matilda Don't tell me I tried, Don't tell me I failed 'Cause all I recall is the scorn of the women And a white feather that I received in the mail 2nd. Well I remember the day I went down to enlist And they said, "Read this chart on the wall" And I remember the tone of the voice of the doctor As he said to me, "That will be all (thank you very much)" And riding home slowly I sat on my tram Not sure if to laugh or to cry For to train in the camps, a man needs both lamps And a good soldier he must have good eyes 3rd. Well it takes more than bullets to kill or to maim Whether worn down or beaten, a death's still a death And you know sometimes when I think back to the '40s I pray for my very last breath As you know, I have nothing against those who fought Ah, but for Christ's sake, we do what we can And there's more than one way that you can skin a cat And there's more than one way you can cripple a man (Scorn of the Women; Weddings, Parties, Anything) There can be no doubt that 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' has become a folk song. Its message is listened to by people around the world without indoctrination or media saturation but because the sentiments of the song were compelling to the wider community. The author is well known and although the song is known to be passed along a chain of performers who each made their alterations, the alterations were mainly restricted to the same lines on each occasion and the song at the end of the chain had exactly the same meaning as the song at the beginning. In today's communication climate it can be argued that each of the performers would always have had free access to Bogle's own version of the song or at least been in constant contact with audience members who were familiar with Bogle's 1978 recording and therefore straying too far from these lyrics would not have been easy without a possible outcry from fans of the song. My experience also suggests that there has been no desire or intention to alter the sentiments of the main motif or any of the sub-motifs of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'. We do however find cases where complete verses are omitted, and where on at least one occasion this has been stated to have been deliberate due to a belief that the concepts expressed within the verse were too strong. Despite these omissions the main drive of the song remains unaltered in each of the relevant cases. 5. Modes of Transmission. Folksong in Australia before the mid twentieth century spread down through families and across friendships and workplace networks in much the same fashion as folk songs have done for many centuries. German communities, such as in the Adelaide Hills and Albury, maintained German folk traditions for decades after many of the same traditions had faded or progressed in the mother land, and their anarchic British cousins, often convict and fortune seeker stock, although perhaps more ready to abandon the constraints of ethnic or national ties, also carried on traditions, crafts and songs that reflected the culture of their former residence. Irish political prisoners, often transported for little more than suspicion of conspiring, had strong motivation to preserve songs of rebellion and to convert older songs to newer situations. Songs in praise of bushrangers were an extension of these earlier songs which also openly displayed a disrespect for authority and perceived government injustice. American gold miners easily recognised the similar circumstances of the Australian goldfields and although the evidence is scant, it is safe to assume that songs relevant to the subject would have flowed back and forth across the ocean sustaining regional changes to the lyrics in the process. The anglo-imperial attitude of early Australia is perhaps responsible for the lack of examples from Chinese residents in Australia and from other parts of the world, as well as the songs of our own indigenous Australians, which must necessarily have existed but which are now in short supply. Issues of language are also integral to this concept and the attitudes of the era. Broadsides A printing (screw) press arrived in Australia with the first fleet in 1788, but was not actually used for nearly a decade because no person could be found who knew how to operate it. When it did begin operation by 1796 it remained under strict Government control and therefore all Broadsheets printed thereon were subject to higher controls (Butterss, 1993b, 49). The Sydney Gazette printed the earliest 'Broadsheet' ballad in Australia on the 8 April 1804 and although the subject dealt with a public protest, the sentiment was decidedly pro-British Colonial Administration. Despite this, ready printed broadsheets were arriving regularly from England with all manner of song. John Manifold in 'Who Wrote The Ballads' wrote that he believed working for the printing press must have been like 'working for Hollywood' a century later (Manifold, 1964, 16). The printing of manuscript (the notation of melodies), was expensive and so broadsheets usually carried only the lyrics with the accompanying suggestion, e.g. 'Sung to the tune of "Flowers of the Forest" '. The Mitchell Library has collections of broadsheets and a bundle labelled 1820 - 1825 included broadsheets among which I counted twenty-four ballad titles in total. The majority of the ballads included in the bundle reflected poverty and the government's harsh treatment of the poor. The reflection of poverty was not intentional in all cases and where such reflection was deliberate, it seemed to be executed as subtly as possible, perhaps to avoid treasonable offences or because poverty was so obviously in abundant evidence there was no need to actively portray it. I have included a selection of titles from this particular collection below: a) New Song - Battle of Waterloo (no score) b) Elegy on Jamie Blue alias BLUE THUMBS (upon his death) . A once well known character in Glasgow, by R Husband. c) Auld Jamie Blue's Answer (saying he is not dead) d) Mary's Dream - Tune - Flowers of the Forest. . (Today's tune to Flowers of the Forest didn't seem to fit.) e) Young Lochinvar f) The Britoner's Lament g) Hangman's serious advice to John Kean . on his departure for Botany Bay (interesting example) h) The Highland Courtship i) 1820 - God Save The Queen - During the Queens trial and j) Praise of the Queen of England This last, represented below, was previously printed in Edinburgh and reprinted in Glasgow. There was no exact date on it but there was an illegible official stamp and the words 'A New Song' in clear evidence. Praise of the Queen of England Ye Gentlemen and Ladies all Come listen unto me I pray you give attention And my speech I'll tell to thee, And many a one along with you In country and in town Which makes me think I soon shall wear The Queen of Englands Crown. An example of the advantage Christianity took of the printing press along with the power of folksong, is found on a separate broadsheet, around A2 in size, with the small heading 'The Remarkable, Affecting, and Interesting LIFE, and Dreadful Sufferings of the poor unhappy', (and then in very large letters) 'ELIZABETH WATSON,'. The sheet displayed a brief story of a 16 year old being seduced and abandoned by a Piccadilly businessman. It then explains that she endured the miseries of prostitution and finally succumbed to the temptation of robbing her Landlady 'for which she was convicted at the Old Bailey, and Transported to Botany Bay. The Christian persuasion of the broadsheet is not immediately apparent to a reader from the present century. It is only after cross referencing the strong pious sentiments of the final paragraphs of the main story, with the accompanying advertisement given below, that the instigator if not financier of the sheet becomes more obvious: Printed by J. Catnach, 2, Monmouth-court, 7 Dials, Where Travellers & Country Shopkeepers may be supported, on Liberal Terms with the following Sheets, ornamented with Cuts, superior to any of the kind in England The Last Day; Our Saviour's Letter; The Lite of Joseph; The Sun of Righteousness; Travels of the Children of Israel; The Vanity of Human Life; The Noble Army of Martyrs; The Morning Star; Elijah fed by Ravens; The Glory of Solomon; The Prince of Israel; The Seraphim; The Golden Grove; The Life of Daniel; The Prophecy of Isaiah; The Star of Bethlehem; The Prodigal Son; The Fall of Man; Christmas Gambols; The Rake's Progress; Destruction of the Kent East Indiaman, & other excellent ones preparing for Press. The broadsheet displays three 'cuts' with the following captions: 'Elizabeth at School', 'Elizabeth quarrelling with her Seducer' and 'Elizabeth's Mother giving her advice on her Death Bed'. There is a short four verse ballad that tells of Elizabeth's dying mother desperately attempting to give Elizabeth last minute advice. The last verse states that Elizabeth heeds the advice until 'beguil'd by a villain'. Original spelling is maintained in the following transcript from the broadsheet. The Dying Mother's Advice 1st. Behold, upon the bed of death A tender Mother lies, Her little children weeping round, How pitiful their cries, Before the vital spark had fled, A last effort she made, To raise herself upon the bed, And in her daughter said- 2nd. I see a hand you cannot see, Which beckons me away, I hear a voice you cannot hear Which says I must not stay. My dearest child, my dying breath Does for your welfare pray, Remember the advice I give, When I am in the clay. 3rd. Of flattering tongues my child beware Keep still in virtue's way, For in the world lies many a snare To lead your steps astray. Be good, be pious - this I crave Upon my dying bed, Twill bring, when I'm laid in the grave A blessing on thy head.' 4th. To Hampstead Church she was conveyed, Amidst a weeping crowd, And in the earth so deep was laid, All in her milk-white shroud. The counsels which she gave her child She strictly did adhere, Till by a villain base beguil'd As we shall after hear. In the last lines of this verse we see that the poem or song is not a stand-alone piece. The words 'as we shall after hear' indicate, as though it were an advertisement, that one should stay tuned for the next instalment, the existence of which has, perhaps, already been written (see below). The full story of Elizabeth's fall from grace, which holds the chief place of importance in this large broadsheet (paper size = A2) is undoubtedly the work of 'The Church of England'. Even without the indications from the titles of the other promised broadsheets advertised, which are mostly Christian based, the story itself implores 'the unsuspecting female reflect a moment upon the awful consequences attendant upon a departure from the paths of virtue - one fatal step proved the overthrow of Elizabeth Watson' and ends with 'She now . . enjoys . . that peace which the world cannot give, and which RELIGION alone can bestow' (their capitals). Below the story are three more illustrations with the captions 'Elizabeth in the prison of Newgate', 'Elizabeth going to Botany Bay' and 'Elizabeth Shipwrecked on her return to England' and then along the bottom of the broadsheet a ballad titled 'A Mournful Copy Of Verses' which reiterated that which had been told in the main story of the Broadsheet. The opening lines of these types of ballad would often be taken from a stock of floating verses used for such purpose, others might include 'Come all ye' or 'As I roved out'. The opening verse below introduces the rest of the ballad as if written by a professional. The second verse with equal proficiency paints in the background while the third ties in perfectly with the previous example of this verse, 'A Dying Mother's Advice', included above. 'A Mournful Copy of Verses' 1st. Ye British maids, pray lend an ear, While I with pain unfold, A tale most sorrowful to hear, Yet true as e'ver[sic] was told A merchant's daughter I was born, Of very good degree, And how I was reduc'd to scorn, You presently shall see. 2nd. I tender parents did possess, Who cherished my youth, They reared me with tenderness, In virtue and in truth, No sorrow then my bosom knew, My heart was light and free, But soon these happy moments flew, Was the changes to me. 3rd. When I was fifteen year of age, My tender Mother died, No soo'hing could my grief assuage, Most bitterly I cried. She clasped me in her dying arms, And strict advice she gave. In the fourth verse we find the first hint of moralising and the scene set to reveal the folly of a young girl allowing her heart to be ensnared by the promises of a wealthy young man. The ballad now warns against rash decisions regarding leaving the family home without parental sanction and describes the possible consequences for the girl and thinks nothing of the father's heartless response or the further consequences of his actions. 4th. Soon after this a gentleman, Did gain my virgin love, My youthful heart he did trepan, And vow'd by all above, That I should be his wedded wife Before a month went round, And be a Lady fix'd for life, The richest in the town. 5th. His artful tongue did me decay - My father's house I left: Each sinful pleasure did enjoy - Most stylish I was kept, Be'er a twelvemonth was elaps'd, I found myself betray'd, He left me plunged in distress, For all the vows he made. 6th. Distracted with his conduct base, Disconsolate and poor; My father would not see my face, But spurn'd me from his door. I wander'd weeping up and down, Till almost famished, And at length was forc'd upon the town, For miserable bread. 7th. My landlady was very kind, While I had health to please, But all her friendship prov'd but wind, When dying with disease, She turn'd me out into the street, All shivering and pale, Without one bit of food to eat, And none would hear my tale. The seventh and eighth verses vary only slightly from other versions of this concept where the girl is tempted to steal from either her landlady or the lady of a house where she works as a servant. The ninth verse is typical of a number of transportation ballads, where a judge passes a sentence of a set number of years in Botany Bay. The mention of 'speed' must surely refer to the time between sentencing and embarking because any who experienced the trip during the late 18th century would hardly describe it so. As ships did not leave on a weekly basis, perhaps this is an indication that the author is not speaking from experience, a theory also supported by the brief reference to the 14 years spent as a convict when all else is far more wordy. 8th. Thus pass'd six dreary months away, Midst want and poverty, Till I upon a fatal day, Was drove to felony. Streight unto Newgate I was sent, My sentence to await; And there did bitterly lament My poor unhappy fate. 9th. The judge declared my guilt was clear, So I was doom'd streightway, To be transported fourteen years, O'er seas to Botany Bay. Unto which place I went with speed, Along with many more, Whose heavy hearts with grief did bleed, To leave their native shore. 10th. Full fourteen years I did remain, And when my time expired, To England I returned again, Which was my hearts desire, Our ship was wrecked on the way, And sixty found a grave, But I upon the wreck did stay, And Heaven did me save. 11th. My aged father long had mourn'd As tho' that I were dead; But when he heard I had returned, What floods of tears he shed. No longer he would me disown, His anger died away, And took the weary wanderer home, Who long had gone astray. 12th. Ye maids while beauty's in its prime, Of perjur'd youths beware, Who oft with studied base design Deceive the easy fair. Tis sweet to view when May has drest, The fair and flow'ry brake, But, ah' beneath its May vest, It hides the vengeful snake. The ballad, like many Hollywood movies today then appeals to compassion with the description of a tearful reunion before delivery of the moralistic solution to the tragedy which contains advice as to how young maids today might avoid such a fate. Again, the final lines seem professionally and artistically created. Examples of individual songs, the subject and/or sentiment of which has no resemblance to any other songs found on these broadsheets or elsewhere, have an undetermined folk status as is, because we have no evidence that they were accepted either en masse or by any subset of the populace of the day. The song above, 'A Mournful Copy of Verses', and therefore others subject to this particular circumstance, must also carry the weight of suspicion due to the strong evidence suggesting the song is a contrivance of evangelical protestants, designed to solicit devotees. We can however award points to an example if we find evidence of strikingly similar songs, with similar sentiments, yet without the encumbrance of religious indoctrination. Two songs which might be offered in support of the example are included below, the first of these is 'The Convict Maid' from The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads, a collection edited by Phillip Butterss and Elizabeth Webby, where the song is called 'The London Convict Maid' with the following note: "From a broadside in the Mitchell Library. Printed by Birt, 39 Great St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials". This tune is a variant of the Irish song from 1788 rebellion, 'The Croppy Boy', a tune also used for the British ballad 'McCaffery'. Nearly 25,000 women were transported to Australia as convicts, half of them from Ireland. Convicts themselves were often defiant rather than repentant, as in the case of the Irish woman who on being sentenced in a Belfast court to a further term of transportation shouted "Hurrah for Sydney and the sky above her!" (Butterss, 1993a. 'Convict Maid': 1st. Ye London maids attend to me While I relate my misery Through London streets I oft have strayed But now I am a Convict Maid 2nd. In innocence I once did live In all the joy that peace could give But sin my youthful heart betrayed And now I am a Convict Maid 3rd. To wed my lover I did try To take my master's property So all my guilt was soon displayed And I became a Convict Maid The Motif for this example is identical to that of the broadsheet referred to above, a summary of which would contain the same items in the same chronological order. The third verse is almost brutal in its brevity. 4th. Then I was soon to prison sent To wait in fear my punishment When at the bar I stood dismayed Since doomed to be a Convict Maid 5th. At lenth the Judge did me address Which filled with pain my aching breast To Botany Bay you will be conveyed For seven years a Convict Maid 6th. For seven long years oh how I sighed While my poor mother loudly cried My lover wept and thus he said May God be with my Convict Maid 7th. To you that here my mournful tale I cannot half my grief reveal No sorrow yet has been portrayed Like that of the poor Convict Maid 8th. Far from my friends and home so dear My punishment is most severe My woe is great and I'm afraid That I shall die a Convict Maid 9th. I toil each day in greaf and pain And sleepless through the night remain My constant toils are unrepaid And wretched is the Convict Maid 10th. Oh could I but once more be free I'd never again a captive be But I would seek some honest trade And never become a Convict Maid (Butterss, 1993a) This song deals more briefly with the general topic of the prior example and yet far more extensively on the subject of penal servitude. The following version of 'The Female Transport' can be found in Old Bush Songs Edited by Douglas Stewart and Nancy Keesing from True Patriots All by Geoffrey C. Ingleton who obtained it from a 'rare broadside in the Mitchell Library, Sydney. It's similarity to 'A Mournful Copy of Verses', is unlikely to be a co-incidence, yet nor can it be automatically assumed that one version has necessarily been taken from the other, a high percentage of the female convicts would have told very similar tales to this story which has been self attributed to Sarah Collins. The most striking quality of the ballad is the level of detail and the impression of being an honest depiction, reminiscent of Duke Tritton's 'Shearing In A Bar'. The examples above seem far more remote from the events described. The difference may just be the difference between songs written for the music hall or other commercial - or religious - purpose, and songs written from experience for the purpose of 'unburdening the soul'. The Female Transport (Unknown/Sarah Collins?): 1st. Come all young girls, both far and near, and listen unto me, While unto you I do unfold what proved my destiny, My mother died when I was young, it caused me to deplore, And I did get my way too soon upon my native shore 2nd. Sarah Collins is my name, most dreadful is my fate, My father reared me tenderly, the truth I do relate, Till enticed by bad company along with many more, It led to my discovery upon my native shore. 3rd. My trial it approached fast, before the judge I stood, And when the judge's sentence passed it fairly chilled my blood, Crying, 'You must be transported for fourteen years or more, And go from hence across the seas unto Van Diemen's [sic] shore.' 4th. It hurt my heart when on a coach I my native town passed by; To see so many I did know, it made me heave a sigh; Then to a ship was sent with speed along with many more, Whose aching hearts did grieve to go unto Van Diemen's shore. 5th. The sea was rough, ran mountains high, with us poor girls 'twas hard, No one but God to us came nigh, no one did us regard. At length, alas! We reached the land, it grieved us ten times more, That wretched place Van Diemen's Land, far from our Native shore. 6th. They chained us two by two, and whipped and lashed along, They cut off our provisions if we did the least thing wrong; They march us in the burning sun until our feet are sore, So hard's our lot now we are got to Van Diemen's shore. 7th. We labour hard from morn to night until our bones do ache, Then every one they must obey, their mouldy beds must make; We often wish when we lay down we ne'er may rise no more To meet our savage Governor upon Van Diemen's shore. 8th. Every night when I lay down I wet my straw with tears, While wind upon that horrid shore did whistle in our ears, Those dreadful beasts upon that land around our cots do roar, Most dismal is our doom upon Van Diemen's shore. 9th. Come all young men and maidens, do bad company forsake, If tongue can tell our overthrow it will make your heart to ache; Young girls I pray be ruled by me, your wicked ways give o'er, For fear like us you spend your days upon Van Diemen's shore. (Ingleton, 1976, 8) Sea Chanties Possibly the most efficient method of song proliferation or propagation was for it to be sung by a sailor aboard ship. In these cases the sailor might have a captive audience (literally in the case of convict transports), and listeners would have ample opportunity to hear repeated performances of a song during a long voyage and then in-turn have the opportunity to make the song a staple performance at the eventual destination, particularly if such passengers or fellow crew were intending to remain at the destination. Work songs allow the labour to pass more easily with steady rhythms when working in company . . . sea chanty verses were sometimes written by ad lib . . . (Manifold, 1964, 8 - 9) Sea chanty singers in particular, were important members of the crew where accomplishing laborious tasks were concerned. Keeping the workers in time and being able to detract from the length of the task and keep the song going until the task was accomplished. If the chanty singer reached the end of his usual verses, with the task yet incomplete, he would have to draw on verses he might have heard sung on previous voyages on other ships, or make up the verses ad-lib. This same practice has been repeated in the singing of these songs among folk music enthusiasts of the late 20th Century during singing/drinking sessions where the revellers have dragged the song out as long as they could from pure enjoyment at social gatherings and festivals. Sometimes the verses would include characters and events contemporary to the time of singing including politicians as well as fellow folk music enthusiasts. The form of the example below which according to Keesing in Old Bush Songs and Rhymes of Colonial Times was published in Music of the Waters by L. A. Smith in 1888, demonstrates how the song might have a variable length, evidenced by a disjointed flow and where some verses are almost repeats of earlier verses. This exact same version minus verses 4, 5 and 6 ¾ the former of which is a close copy of verse 7 ¾ is published in Ron Edwards' Great Australian Folk Songs, where the words and phrasing of the included verses is identical. Only a minor variation in the chorus which is printed as 'We're bound . . ' instead of 'I am bound . .' and the second last line of which has an 'Oh' at the beginning, distinguish the publications. It is virtually impossible that both of these could have been collected in the field sixty years apart and still have used identical phrasing in a form of song which is known for its informal and flexible manner of performance. It is a simple matter therefore to conclude that either the source for both publications is the same or one is the source for the other with the afore-mentioned three verses either added or omitted. In fact Edwards indicates that he originally reprinted this ballad with variations in his and John Manifold's Bandicoot Ballad series in the early to mid-fifties and lists Smith's Music of the Waters, as mentioned above, as the source. This is a practical demonstration of how an editor has altered the text of a folk song he has published as part of a collection. Below is the text as shown in Stewart and Keesing's Old Bush Songs and Rhymes of Colonial Times: South Australia Is My Home (A Capstan Chanty): 1st. Solo: South Australia is my native home, Chorus: Heave away! Heave away! Solo: South Australia is my native home, Chorus: I am bound to South Australia. Heave away! Heave away! Heave away, you ruler king, I am bound to South Australia. 2nd. There aint but the one thing grieves my mind, To leave my dear wife and child behind. 3rd. I see my wife standing on the quay, The tears do start as she waves to me. 4th. When I am on a foreign shore, I think of the wife that I adore. 5th. Those crosses you see at the bottom of the lines Are only to put me in mind. 6th. As I was standing on the pier A fair young maid to me appeared 7th. As I am standing on a foreign shore I'll drink to the girl that I adore 8th. For I'll tell you the truth and I'll tell you no lie, If I don't love that girl I hope I may die. 9th. Liza Lee she promised me That when I returned she would marry me. 10th. And now I am on a foreign strand With a glass of whiskey in my hand. 11th. And I'll drink a glass to the foreign shore, And one to the girl that I adore. 12th. When I am homeward bound again, My name I'll publish on the main, 13th. With a good ship and a jolly good crew, A good captain and chief mate too. 14th. Now fare thee well, fare thee well, For sweet news to my girl I'll tell. (Stewart, 1976, 68 - 69) Transport of other means also aided the transmission of folk song within Australia as Russel Ward points out in The Australian Legend in a reference to Bullock-drivers: 'They carried news, gossip, manners and songs, as well as stores, wool and hides' (Ward, 1958, 18). Publishers. The printing press remained a dominant feature in the transmission of song in Australia, progressing from broadsheets to songsters and the pages of Newspapers. Charles Thatcher of Bendigo was among those who produced collections of his own songs and sold them as songsters. Thatcher composed songs topical of the Victorian Goldfields and although mainly resident in Bendigo, sometimes travelled to Ballarat and other major towns to perform his jocular songs in typical review style. His songs, as has been stated above, sometimes lost touch with their authorship, as with 'The German Girls' and 'Look Out Below' which turned up on adjacent Gold Fields in New South Wales without an acknowledged author. Paterson also produced publications which included his songs and presumably some songs he had collected, such as in his publication Old Bush Songs. Well known publications including the Bulletin published and solicited songs from the late nineteenth century well into the twentieth century. We are left to conclude that folk song collectors including Percy Grainger ¾ who had a strong attachment to Australia ¾ Cecil J. Sharp and others who collected extensively in other parts of the world, thought Australia an unworthy location for the collection of folk songs by the absence of Australian songs in their collections. It wasn't until the mid-twentieth century that soliciting and collecting Australian folksongs began more seriously. Among these collectors were Albert L. Lloyd, Bill Scott, Alan Scott, Ron Edwards, Russel Ward, John Meredith and Nancy Keesing. The tape-recorder, indeed, promises to alter and simplify future methods of collection of folklore. It seems to me that in Australia at present our folk-song has arrived at a curiously paradoxical stage. With the passing of the genuine 'pioneering atmosphere', with improved communications, and above all with the advent of the film and radio, folk-singing and folk-tradition practically ceased. (Keesing, 1988, xvii) As Meredith and Kempster discovered when they first attempted collecting the tunes of folk songs, the notation on paper thereof, was not only laborious, but near impossible to achieve with any accuracy. This was particularly true in cases where the nuances, decorations, timing, metre or tune might vary with each verse or with each singing of the song. Meredith solved the problem with one of the first tape recorders to enter Australia, by recording the voices of his subjects onto magnetic tape (Keesing, 1988, 111, 112). Despite the vast quantity of material Meredith collected, without whose work much of what we accept today as Australia's most familiar folk songs would have been lost, he has endured pockets of criticism for not recording original works along with the songs then regarded as folk songs, and not recording spoken explanations of context of both the singers and their songs. Meredith mirthfully recognises this concept today and explains that the cost of recording tape was as much a mitigating factor as existing ideas of authorship and folksong. In the early years Meredith financed his collecting from his own meagre earnings. There has been much debate about collecting practices in Australia in folklore circles. For example Graham Seal wrote the following in The Hidden Culture: Folklore in Australian Society: Songs, customs, yarns and other forms must not be wrenched out of their appropriate contexts by well-meaning but over-enthusiastic collectors intent on adding a new item to their collection, like a philatelist mounting another stamp in the album. Lightning sorties to particular regions or communities with tape recorder at the ready, are difficult to avoid in this country of vast distances and transportation costs. But this sort of field work needs to be conducted in an organised manner with the appropriate information about informants, the area, the folklore practices and expressions they bear, and the ways in which these operate as integral parts of their lives. It is not enough to obtain the name, age and address of the performer or bearer of folklore. (Seal, 1989, 16) Toward the 1950s however the ballad in general was appearing less frequently in publications. An anonymous piece in a 1958 edition of Singabout, Meredith himself perhaps, states an opinion to this effect and blames the phenomenon on an encroaching culture of intellectualism. The reason why we see so few ballads these days is because the 'literary' journals have closed their columns to the present day bush balladists. They are so pre-occupied with 'poetry on a higher level', for the appreciation of a few so called intellectuals - poetry that few people read and even fewer understand. From The Editor's Mailbag without acknowledgement. (Meredith, 1958, 2) The Australian bush ballad of the previous century now sought a voice elsewhere and new examples seemed unlikely to those loyal enthusiasts who clung to the ballad as a central icon of Australian Nationalism. The Bush Band Era. The folk revival of the 1950s, a first world event, manifested itself in Australia by way of the production of a stage show in Melbourne and Sydney created by Dick Diamond from a selection of songs both anonymous and with known authors. The show was titled Reedy River and featured instruments taken from American 'hillbilly' culture in the form of the 'lagerphone' a stick with a series of bottle tops that John Meredith's brother Cecil recreated after witnessing such an instrument in a magazine. The T-chest bass had similar origins and although there is no evidence to suggest these instruments were prevalent at nineteenth century bush gatherings, they were portrayed in this light during the staging of Reedy River and Australians in search of a pioneering national identity were romantically attracted to these notions. The songs from Reedy River became popular and groups of performers inspired by the show banded together under the heading 'bush band' at this time. Some of the actors from the various performances of the show were among the members of these bands. 'The Morton Bay Bushwackers' of which the folk song collector, John Meredith was a member, began performing in Sydney. Other members and associates included Jamie Carlin, Bob Bolton, Bill and Alan Scott, and Chris Kempster. Nancy Keesing accredits Burl Ives' visit to Australia in the mid-nineteen-fifties as being the major factor in the initiation of the Australian Folk Revival and notes a resurgence of folk song collecting and publishing. 'Everyone in the collecting field became friendly. Hugh Anderson and Ron Edwards in Victoria who were collecting words and music and publishing in Edwards' Ramskull Press, kept in touch with us and we shared discoveries and information. Russel Ward's collection and selection had a different slant and purpose. . . . he was collecting songs for use in his PHD thesis. This work later emerged as his classic The Australian Legend.' (Keesing, 1988, 101). Simultaneously a prominent Melbourne songwriter Glen Tomasetti was writing topical folk songs to close the television news each week and Hotel lounges and Restaurants in major cities were becoming venues for amateur folk concerts and singing sessions. Melbourne's bush band fad did not gather significant momentum until the beginning of the 1970s with Mulga Bill's Bicycle Band and a Melbourne version of the Bushwackers known as 'The Original Bushwackers and Bullockies Bush Band'. As 'Mulga Bill's Bicycle Band' was ending their career, the Melbourne Bushwackers began theirs, and soon became so popular no dance hall in Melbourne was large enough to hold the crowds that the band attracted, epitomised by an estimated 4,000 attempting to cram into the Royal Park Hall in 1974, myself included. The major inner suburban shopping streets at this time, particularly in Melbourne were lined with restaurants offering a genuine taste of European culture including the music of Greece, Italy, Turkey and Malta. Melbourne became well known to be the third largest Greek city in the world. Melbourne's student population included the children of immigrants from these countries who casually sought Australian culture with European parallels and the new Bush Dance culture met this criteria and provided a refreshing alternative to the hypnotic psychedelic discos of the 1960s. Popular television shows including 'The Midday Show' quoted 'Bush Dances' as being top of the list of 'ways to meet people of the opposite sex'. Yet the apparent popularity of Bush Bands and Bush Dances only fleetingly managed to raise the profile of Australian folk songs, and of the sixty-four or so bush bands that could be counted and described as 'Bushwacker clone bands' in the late 1970s only a few were in evidence a decade later. No significant emergence of a lasting culture of Australian folk song performance was seen outside that which existed around the fringes of the developing folk festival trend. The bush band and bush dance era of the 1970s was largely based on romantic notions of what lifestyles in the bush might have been like during the previous century and due to cursory research drew on invented traditions of instrumentation, language syntax and costume. The fad seemed driven by a perceived need for a National identity unique from that of other Nations in combination with the opportunity bush dances afforded people of opposite gender to meet each other at close range. The dance style of the 1960s had developed into an activity where having a partner was not mandatory and if a partner was present they were not necessarily required to touch or hold each other as nearly all previous dance styles had done, particularly rock and roll. The re-introduction of an activity that included progressive dances, where partners would change every 32 bars of music or so, was appealing for those wishing to make the close acquaintance of the opposite gender. The Bush Dance era of the 1970s proved to be a passing fad when the dance tunes, often simplified versions of Scottish Country dance tunes ¾ as were the dance steps themselves ¾ were unable to capture the attention of subsequent generations of young Australians who were being lured by music generated by digital technology and promoted extensively, via flashy video clips on television rock shows by wealthy American recording companies who were unaware of Australia's bush band trend. Very few bush bands attempted to arrange tunes and songs in a manner that would appeal to modern audiences. Those that did received scathing criticism from the conservatives among folk music audiences. Melbourne's Bushwackers appeared to be the most innovative with the utilisation of electric instruments and rock music rhythms but most of the sixty-four or so bush bands mentioned above were performing copies of Bushwacker arrangements rather than arranging the songs for themselves and virtually no progression from the Bushwacker style developed into the eighties bringing to an end any attraction bush music may have had to the following generations of Australia's young adults. Folksong Today Modes of transmission in Australia today include the traditional mode of oral transmission as well as via print, audio recordings and recently generated electronic methods. Oral forms of transmission exist as lullabies, children's game rhymes (Factor, 1988, xi), songs shared during washing and drying domestic dishes or travelling in cars, buses or trains, sporting refrains passed on at sporting events such as football matches, and songs ¾ often bawdy or anarchic in nature ¾ common to a campfire or dormitory environment. Below is a table where typical venues and forms of dissemination are matched to the various categories of songs to be found. A brief survey, mainly sent to folk music enthusiasts who were also subscribers of an internet e-mailing list, supported indications gleaned from a series of radio interviews that songs are often learnt while assisting with the family dish washing or travelling in the family car on long journeys. Bob Fagan, a prominent performer of folk songs at Festivals and folk music venues in Australia, spoke of how his family, while washing and drying dishes, used to sing songs commonly heard on the radio. These songs, where his family was concerned, mainly consisted of War era songs that were of significance to his parents. The set of songs Fagan sang during this activity were usually different to the sets of songs his family sang while gathered around the family piano or to those he later sang at parties which were also divorced from those he now performs at folk festivals and folk venues. He explained that each circumstance was different and naturally inspired different sets of songs to be sung. His family were still singing songs while gathered around his father's hospital bed to celebrate his birthday a couple of days before I spoke to him. Source Venues Form Of Dissemination. Traditional Ballads Folk Festival Hotels & Restaurants. House Concerts, Dinner Parties Internet Recording sales, Bootleg recordings, Songbooks, Repetition, Web pages, E-mail, Personally written lyrics. Deliberate Compositions (such as 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'). Radio Broadcasts, Television Broadcasts, Folk Festivals, Hotels & Restaurants, House Concerts Dinner Parties Internet Recording sales, Bootleg recordings, Internet Sound Files, Songbooks, Printed text, Repetition, Web pages, E-mail, Personally written lyrics. Workplace songs Workplace Repetition, Personally written lyrics. Mass Protest Songs Political Demonstrations Repetition, Personally written lyrics. Sporting Refrains Sporting Events, Buses, Trains, Cars, Internet Repetition, Songbooks, Recording sales, Web pages, E-mail, Personally written lyrics. Children's Songs Home, Street, Play Group, Pre-school, School, Youth Groups, Internet Repetition, Songbooks, Recording sales, Web pages, E-mail Campfire Songs School Camps, Youth Group Camps, Buses, Trains, Cars, Holiday Campfires, Repetition, Songbooks, Recording sales, Personally written lyrics. Very recently, in terms of the history of humankind, people have been utilising a method of transmitting songs that has not been available to our ancestors. The full impact of the emergence of the 'World Wide Web' during the eleventh hour of the second millennium is yet to be experienced, the impact on the transmission of folksong is already unfathomable. E-mails are now being posted on e-mail based bulletin boards seeking the remainder of the words to songs. Note the following series of e-mails. This first is an e-mail posted from Queensland, by the editor of Brisbane's Folk Music Newsletter on 3 February, 2000. To: "'Aus-worldfolk'" Subject: HELP - missing words of Lamorna Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2000 11:22:33 +1000 Hi Folks I have had a request for missing words/verses to a Cornish song call Lamorna. Can anyone help with this? Please email me. Cheers June We have these: LAMORNA (chorus & first verse) T'was way down Albert Square When the sun it had jst set T'was there I met a fair young maid - And the evening it was wet, wet, wet (Thumping table) And her hair hung down in curls She was a charming rover And we rowed? (roved) all night in the pale moonlight Way down to Lamorna. (verses missing) She lifted up her vail Her face was covered over And 'pon my life, it was my wife I took down to Lamorna chorus She said "I knew you well I knew you 'fore you kissed me And for that I sware you'll pay my fare Way down to Lamorna Chorus In just over 4 hours we have this reply from Melbourne. From: "Peter Thornton" | Block address To: "June Nichols - Folk Rag - Brisbane Australia" , "'Aus-worldfolk'" Subject: RE: HELP - missing words of Lamorna Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2000 15:38:10 +1030 The version I have goes like this:- So now I'll sing to you It's about a maiden fair I met her the other evening At the corner of the square She had a dark and roving eye And her hair was covered over We rowed all night In the pale moonlight Way down to Lamorna. T'was down in Albert Square I never shall forget Her eyes they shone like diamonds And the evening it was wet, wet, wet And her hair hung down in curls Her face was covered over We rowed all night In the pale moonlight Way down to Lamorna. As we got in the cab I asked her for her name And when she gave it me For with mine it was the same So I lifted up her veil For her face was covered over To my surprise It was my wife I took down to Lamorna. She said I know you know I knew you all along I knew you in the dark For I did it for a lark And for that lark you'll pay For the taking of your donna You'll pay the fare I do declare Way down to Lamorna. (Taken from "Hengan"). Pete Rocky River Bush Band http://rockyriverbushband.tripod.com South Coast Folk Club http://www.geocities.com/scfolkclub Frances Folk Weekend http://speed.speedlink.com.au/users/rrbbpete/ A thank you from the originator of the request within a day. From: "June Nichols - Folk Rag - Brisbane Australia" | Block address To: "'Aus-worldfolk'" Subject: Lamorna Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 12:52:14 +1000 Hi Folks! Thanks to all who replied to my request for words and verses of the Cornish song Lamorna. I have passed on the information you sent. Cheers June The following day we have this reply from Sydney's outer west. Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2000 10:18:12 +1100 To: aus-worldfolk@yarn.edfac.unimelb.edu.au From: mark gregory | Block address Subject: Lamorna Dear all straight from Cornwall ___________________ Lamorna (I'm listening to it on CD at the moment on "Best of Cornish Folksongs" - Sue White - Vols 1&2 SAK CD 101 Orchard Tapes LTD - Fax: 01872 864213 in case you're interested) Verse 1: This song I'll sing to you, It's about a maiden fair, I met the other evening At the corner of the square; She'd a dark and a roving eye And her hair was covered over, And we roved all night In the pale moonlight Away down to Lamorna. Chorus: Twas down in Albert Square I never shall forget Her eyes they shone like diamonds And the evening it was wet, wet wet; And her hair hung down in curls, She was a charming rover, And we roved all night In the pale moonlight Away down to Lamorna Verse 2 When we got in the cab I asked her for her name And when she gave it me Well, mine it was the same; So I lifted up her veil For her face was covered over: To my surprise It was my wife I took down to Lamorna. Verse 3 She said, "I knew you well I knew you all the time.. I knew you in the dark, And I did it for a lark; And for that lark you'll pay For the taking o f your donna You'll pay the fare For riding there Away down to Lamorna". This is very well known all over Cornwall, even though it is from the far west (long way to walk!!) A bit of background - Albert Square is in Penzance and Lamorna is some miles further west - a tiny fishing village on the south coast a mile or two from Land's end - very pretty, wooded steep valley - narrow roads. A trip to Lamorna in a horse drawn cab would ensure that the passengers would have to cling to each other to prevent from being thrown onto the floor almost all the way! If someone is really interested in Cornish songs, a good book is "This Song I'll Sing to You" Songs the Cornish love to sing - edited by Mike O'Connor ISBN: 0 9528225 7 1 ____________________ regards Mark Mark Gregory (Web Developer) School of Economics and Finance The date of this response is worth noting in that it appears to have been posted before the original request was made. It may be that she sent some individual requests before the all-points-bulletin, or it may just be one of the internets characteristic glitches. Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 17:08:46 +1100 To: aus-worldfolk@yarn.edfac.unimelb.EDU.AU From: FOLK AUSTRALIA | Block address Subject: re- Lamorna No words... but I've had fun looking: The words on this real audio have a few variations but otherwise are the same as the ones Pete sent through. It is a full song sample of Brenda Wooton singing it - coming from, of all places, a site for Cornish Rugby Songs: http://www.rookley.demon.co.uk/ta/tasongs.html And Geoff Grainger's site (great site by the way) says: "Way down to Lamorna" is a jolly, amusing West Country (i.e. for those outside UK that means Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset for good measure) song that I learned from Brian Kelly The lyrics are pretty unique in that it deals with a bloke out on the spree chatting the lassies up. He is either so inebriated or stupid or both that he chats his own wife up in the confusion of darkness and makes a date for them to take a trip together down to Lamorna (just a cat's jump from Lands End in Cornwall). His wife, in the nice kind way that the ladies are, doesn't let on and, boy, doesn't he have to pay for his stupidity later! The song doesn't go into the matter of what the hell was his wife doing out on the spree !. That's equality gents, but we knew that already didn't we! Sounds like a good song! And then the process repeats on the 9 February, 2000 with another song. Dear folks I just got this request and wonder if youse of the living database can help!!! Hi mark, i've just been to your excellent song site, I was looking for a song Robert Hughes quotes in The Fatal Shore, He said it was called the Rum song, and he gives this verse . . . regards mark Songs are sought and found and passed on in this fashion once or twice per week. Sometimes the requests come from America, seeking old and discontinued recordings of A. L. Lloyd for instance, other times from the United Kingdom or among well known friends who find it easier to use e-mail today than risk forgetting to ask each other at the next get-together. Sometimes the responses are almost frenzied, other times there seems to be none at all, though I expect an answer has been sent more directly to the inquirer. This e-mail list mode couples with the many web-sites containing hundreds of folk songs has rendered the acquisition of material easier than at any other time in the history of humankind. 6. The Role and Importance of Folk Song: Folk song is sometimes dismissed by academics and non-academics alike as trivial entertainment for the amusement of children, folk festival attendees and grandparents, seldom expressed directly, it is more often a sin of omission rather than commission, as for example the Australian Government's response to the Folklife Inquiry which it had itself commissioned in 1985. None of the recommendations of the Inquiry has ever been implemented by the Australian Government. See Folklife: Our Living Heritage (1997), Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Folklife in Australia, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, pages 273-281. This attitude exists to varying degrees in western culture world-wide, yet folksong remains the undercurrent drawn upon during times of political unrest to galvanise resistance to conservative measures. There are some governments however, that do acknowledge the importance of folk song in a negative fashion. An example of this is when Australian folk venue audiences experienced an abundance of visiting folk music groups from Chile during the 1970s who were taking refuge from an upsurge of dictatorial style oppression. Each band of musicians stated that they had to flee their country because the material they had been performing, which contained lyrics describing the plight of the lower classes in Chile, had rendered it unsafe for them to remain in Chile. Similarly, a significant number of groups of people, in both North America and Australia during the Vietnam war era, who felt unable to change government policy via alternate means, staged peace rallies and wrote anti-war songs and prominent performers from all genres recorded and released songs reflecting what they perceived to be humanitarian views to combat those who advocated the conflict with what was generally held by many as a politically and/or economically based agendum. Performers of folk songs also addressed and raised the profile of many other issues considered as politically incorrect. During the 1960s Glen Tomasetti who was active in the 'Save Our Sons' movement during the Vietnam war also wrote and performed topical songs on themes such as conservation and equal opportunity (Davey, 1993, 354) some of which were aired on television on a weekly basis as a closer to the news. There is no doubt that the volume of material of this nature and the veracity and velocity of the attendant rhetoric eventually had its influence on governmental policy and decisions relating directly to the cessation of an Australian military presence in Vietnam. Government policy generated public opinion which then inspired and influenced the subject and sentiment of contemporary song compositions and the resurrection of pre-existing protest songs such as the Irish folk song 'Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye'. Many of these songs indicated by their popularity that they represented public opinion and thenceforward further influenced public opinion to the point where government policies were influenced by the resultant songs. As Graham Seal in The Hidden Culture: Folklore in Australian Society writes: . . . the continued transmission of a particular set of values and attitudes through a folk tradition crossing several hundred years and half a planet . . . is in itself . . . proof of the ability of folklore to influence attitudes and to condition actions in the present (Seal, 1989, 29). Mass media manipulation skills began many centuries ago with ruling bodies commissioning songs to be written with attitudes that either supported themselves or denigrated their neighbouring enemies. Ballads speaking of the unfaithfulness of a neighbouring Lord's wife for instance, such as in the 'Little Musgrave (or Matty Groves)' and 'Derwent Water (not Lord Derwent Water)' ballads, could be of great advantage in destabilisation of that realm. Raunchy songs of this nature would easily gain popularity regardless of whether the performer believed the tales to be true, in much the same manner as jokes ridiculing the idea that a dingo could carry off a baby had influence on public opinion in the case of the disappearance of the baby, Azaria Chamberlain, from Ayers Rock (Uluru) in 1980, and yet not all people who told the jokes believed Lindy Chamberlain or another member of the Chamberlain family to be guilty. Performers do not necessarily restrict the content of their performance to what they believe to be truth. A troubadour who performed songs which portrayed scandals among the nobility would have needed to be sure of the political persuasion of the audience before performing such a ballad. Such a troubadour might have gauged audience reactions to introductory remarks or begun by performing milder songs with more light-hearted criticism of the eventual target. One can imagine that the Chilean bands mentioned above to have tested the audiences of each performance with milder songs before singing the more pointed ones that eventually led to their self imposed exile. These songs, if initiated 'from above' and as such generally considered to possess almost zero folk status at that point, may still gather folk status if they take the fancy of groups of people and other performers. Also, troubadours so commissioned by their master may not have always agreed with the master's sentiments and once released from the Hall of the master for the day, might then have altered the words of the ballad to suit their own tastes, or possibly possessed a range of versions in their repertoire to suit the various persuasions of the audiences within their performing circuit. The difference between works which are commissioned, and songs considered to be folk song is the ability for the public to alter the lyrics as they see fit versus organised propaganda. Even a song such as a National Anthem can be altered and adopted by a public to suit their own beliefs. Sometimes such songs are altered or parodied merely for the sake of impudence, or for humour where no hard-line political motivation is necessarily present. Such songs, although trivially initiated may still have dire consequences where swaying public opinion is concerned. One of the major qualifying characteristics of folksong is that it is unfettered by controls from above. Although politics, religion, commerce and culture all have their influences on folksong and, as has been shown above in the example of 'A Mournful Copy of Verses', can even attempt to emulate folksong for their own purpose, folksongs will not propagate successfully unless they reflect the philosophies of a reasonable number of people and their popularity will be short-lived without relevant motifs with which people feel they can identify. Therefore folksong is the shared acknowledgement of issues by a reasonable proportion of a population that may span multiple regions and eras. We can also acknowledge that there is a correlation between the popularity of a folksong and the degree to which a belief is held within the proportion of the population who embrace a particular folk song. For instance, the acceptance of Eric Bogle's song 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda', as enjoyed by both anti-war advocates and returned soldiers alike, is a significant indication of a region of common ground on the subject of War between these two normally opposing factions. It is interesting to note that initially, residue peace movement stalwarts were tentative toward the song believing it may be glorifying war to some extent, while simultaneously, members of Returned Soldiers Leagues Clubs in New South Wales chastised my own performances of the song in the mid 1970s saying it was disrespectful of returned soldiers and I heard similar reports from other performers at the time. These early attitudes toward the song now seem long forgotten. Although many of these songs may be inspired by an individual's political bias, the survival of a song, particularly beyond the longevity of the cause it favours, relies heavily on the continuing appeal and over-riding sentiment of the song. In this way they can be used as an ongoing unofficial but influential gauge of popular opinion, a poll where no poll was taken. The rebellious disrespect of authority kept alive by Irish expatriates through to the twentieth century lives on in Australia perhaps, in the poetry of Banjo Paterson's 'Travelling Down The Castlereagh' (also known as 'A Bushman's Song') and Dorothy Hewitt's 'Weevils in the Flour' where war is waged against the elite, the landowners and the big corporations rather than governments. In those humpies by the river, Where we lived on dole and stew, While just across the water, Those greedy smokestacks grew, And the hunger of the many, Filled the bellies of the few. Excerpt from 'Weevils in the flour', Dorothy Hewitt's poem concerning Newcastle's BHP Industrial plant in the 1950s which now has recently closed down. (Radic, 1989, 87) People are more often ruled by the culture within which they reside, than they are by law. Many are also easily swayed by the sub-cultures through which they pass during the period of a week or year. Sub-cultures tend to unofficially decide which, if any, laws they will observe. Some sub-cultures consider legalities as irrelevant. As with biker culture, classroom culture, traffic culture, street culture, hippie culture and even police culture, the laws of the land do not necessarily govern the actions of the majority of the people who sustain the culture; the rules of the culture usually take precedence. While people are ever conscious of their own specific cultural etiquettes, they often readily admit an ignorance of the law. The laws of the land are observed if, and to the degree, so dictated by the sub-culture. Cultural protocols, well recognised yet often unwritten, are used as acceptable guidelines for people who profess to be honest citizens and who genuinely believe themselves so, even if these cultural norms are also illegal activities such as taking the office pens home, smoking marijuana, smuggling alcohol into a sporting venue or on to public transport, regularly driving over the speed limit or dropping rubbish in the street. Although folk songs appear harmless in times of peace and harmony, they quickly become vital in times of perceived oppression, for the purpose of voicing protest, uniting people of like mind and galvanising rebellious thought and action. Folk songs were 'newspapers' before the invention of the printing press, the 'educational institutions' before the instigation of schools and the 'law books' before the organisation of the legal system and still exist in these capacities to some degree, even in regions where the aforementioned facilities exist, particularly during times of public unrest, when songs of the love of place or person give way to songs of protest, allegiance and rebellion. They may also be a lullaby for the purpose of calming babies or drunkards, a battle song designed to ensure that future generations remember the revenge that must one day be taken for an apparent injustice, a nostalgic reminder of a life a people had to endure or a mournful song of unrequited love. The Future Folk song in the third Millennium will be a far more global phenomenon with many vast on-line folk song databases already in existence. As the auditory dimension of the internet becomes further developed, access to the tunes of songs will be more accessible, perhaps to the point where, in some cases, requests for real-time live performances can be met for people seeking tunes. These may also in some circumstances be accompanied by a visual close-up of chording on which ever instrument is relevant to the piece or player or a choice of any instrument the interested party may choose. The internet, especially individual web-sites and collaborations of web-sites, is itself a modern manifestation that fulfils the role for which folksong formerly had the responsibility, the same role community radio has fulfilled during the latter half of the previous century, that of disseminating views other than those of government and commercial enterprise. Folk song often dismissed as unimportant and associated with things old, out-of-date and of a trivial nature, is not just an entertainment. Folk song, particularly in former times, was responsible for bringing news, moral advice, political education and bonding together people with shared philosophies. This role is now being fulfilled on the internet and after a time when the relevance of instant world wide communication, knowledge and goods with everyday human life has been fully explored, the value of all things not technological will be felt and appreciated more keenly for their greater than three dimensional aspects and textures. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, communities were groups of people living within a defined region, by the end of the following century, due to the 'penny post', 'telephone networks' and finally 'the internet', we have discovered that communities can be groups of individuals isolated physically by thousands of kilometres and spread out over the entire planet. There is a vast choice of folk song databases available on the internet today and this volume may possibly increase at a rate greater than exponentially due to the ease with which text may be replicated. Soon, this year, perhaps already, the idea of tracing origins and where particular songs have travelled will be 'virtually' pointless, because people the entire world over now have access to every other point of the world. In other ways the strengths of folklore will again come into its own with the rise of web-sites created by ordinary and extraordinary people alike having the freedom to state their own opinions 'beneath and outside the formal structures of language and society'. A tour of free chat rooms 'around the world in 8 hours' reveals not only a new mode of communication but new codes of communication, new languages, new words and new etiquettes (netiquettes) relating to security, morals and legalities. These new modes of dissemination will partly fulfil the role folksong has fulfilled in past centuries but they won't wipe out folksongs and there is every possibility that folksongs via these new mediums, as with community radio, will in fact regain a foothold within those masses of people who still feel an independent voice is a necessary ingredient of modern living. Even as it exists in close relationships to all aspects of culture, folklore operates beneath and outside the formal structures of language and society as an unlegitimated but necessary process. That process gives meaning to the lives of individuals within groups and also performs broader cultural functions of fundamental importance to the maintenance of social stability. (Seal, 1989, 17) ~ END ~ Bibliography: Alexander, Dave. Singer At Large, (CD DAS27/24H). Folk Federation Of NSW., PO Box A182, Sydney South NSW., 1997. Anderson, Hugh. Colonial Ballads, Ramskull Press, Ferntree Gully, First published 1955. 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