https://youtube/watch?v=UORKwBTKWqw SYDNEY 2000 OLYMPICS (5/6) - SLIM DUSTY - WALTZING MATILDA - YouTube GLORY GLORY TO AUSSIE SPIRITS... Song for the day. Waltzing Matilda is Australias most widely known bush ballad. A folk song, the song has been referred to as the unofficial national anthem of Australia. The title is Australian slang for travelling by foot with ones goods (waltzing, derived from the German auf der Walz) in a Matilda (bag) slung over ones back. The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker, or swagman, making a drink of tea at a bush camp and capturing a sheep to eat. When the sheeps owner arrives with three police officers to arrest the worker for the theft, the worker commits suicide by drowning himself in the nearby watering hole, after which his ghost haunts the site. The original lyrics were written in 1895 by poet and nationalist Banjo Paterson. It was first published as sheet music in 1903. Extensive folklore surrounds the song and the process of its creation, to the extent that the song has its own museum, the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, Queensland. In 2012, to remind Australians of the songs significance, Winton organized the inaugural Waltzing Matilda Day to be held on 6 April, the anniversary of its first performance. The song was first recorded in 1926 as performed by John Collinson and Russell Callow.] In 2008, this recording of Waltzing Matilda was added to the Sounds of Australia registry in the National Film and Sound Archive which says that there are more recordings of Waltzing Matilda than any other Australian song. The Australian poet Banjo Paterson wrote the words to Waltzing Matilda in January 1895 while staying at a bush station in western Queensland, the Dagworth Homestead near Winton owned by the Macpherson family. The words were written to a tune recited by 21 year-old Christina Macpherson, one of the family members at the station. Macpherson had been taken with The Craigielee March which she heard played by a military band while attending the Warrnambool steeplechase horse racing in Victoria during 1894, and played it back by ear at Dagworth. Paterson decided that the music would be a good piece to set lyrics to, and produced the original version during the rest of his stay at the station and in Winton Glossary The lyrics contain many distinctively Australian English words, some now rarely used outside of the song. These include: waltzing - derived from the German term auf der Walz, which means to travel while working as a craftsman and learn new techniques from other masters before returning home after three years and one day, a custom which is still in use today among carpenters. Matilda - a romantic term for a swagmans bundle. See below, Waltzing Matilda. Waltzing Matilda - from the above terms, to waltz Matilda is to travel with a swag, that is, with all ones belongings on ones back wrapped in a blanket or cloth swagman - a man who travelled the country looking for work. The swagmans swag was a bed roll that bundled his belongings. billabong - an oxbow lake (a cut-off river bend) found alongside a meandering river. coolibah tree- a kind of eucalyptus tree which grows near billabongs. jumbuck - a sheep. billy - a can for boiling water in, usually 2--3 pints. tucker bag - a bag for carrying food (tucker). troopers - policemen Squatter - Australian squatters started as early farmers who raised livestock on land which they did not legally have the right to use; in many cases they later gained legal use of the land even though they did not have full possession, and became wealthy thanks to these large land holdings. The squatters claim to the land may be as uncertain as the swagmans claim to the jumbuck.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 23:04:55 +0000
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