Something for the weekend. A first rate vido explaining the rollicking song Waltzing Matilda to those of us who do not speak Australian. 🙂
Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled
“You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me”
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
“You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me”
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled,
“You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me”.
Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong,
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee,
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag,
“You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me”.
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
“You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me”
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag,
“You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me”.
Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred,
Down came the troopers, one, two, three,
“Where’s that jolly jumbuck you’ve got in your tucker bag?”
“You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me”.
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
“You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me”
“Where’s that jolly jumbuck you’ve got in your tucker bag?”,
“You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me”.
Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong,
“You’ll never take me alive”, said he,
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
“You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me”.
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
“You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me”
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
“You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me.”
In America Waltzing Matilda is so associated with Australia that it comes as something of a shock to realize that it is not the national anthem of Auustralia. The national anthem is Advance Australia Fair:
I haven’t heard Rolf in a long time!
I even had that audio on a tape that friends brought back from Aus at least 10 years ago.
PS: Rolf Harris yelled at me from the stage during a show in Knoxville, TN, when I wondered how he did the three-leg thing for his first song. 😀
“….for those of us who do not speak the Australian language.” 😆
Don. That language is actually known as ‘Strine’, 😉 ( after the habit the Aussies have of truncating their words) There was a book written in Oz about it back in the 70’s.
For example, one of the most common greetings (in NZ also) is, “How are you going, mate?”, or in the kiwi vernacular, “howya goin’, mate”.
The Aussies, however, have managed to shorten this further – “Ayagama”
(OK, that’s only a small exageration – how can I deride my Aussie mates like that? 😎
Lived in Oz for 10 years from 1978 – 1988 – had a lot of hard work, good times, and good mates still, over there.
Agreed Kathryn. Rolf Harris was very popular back in the 70’s and 80’s, but all his TV shows were done in London, not Australia. but of course, he is an Aussie, and was part of the Aussie invasion of London back then.
In America Don the same greeting would be “Howyadoin ?” or “Howdy!” farther south. Local usage and slang has always fascinated me. I spent the first years of my life in Newfoundland and when I came back to Paris, Illinois I had a Newfie accent. All of my father’s family had thick Hoosier accents, Paris being adjacent to the Indiana border. I guess all of that combined to spark my early interest in the subject of regional dialects.