Once a jolly
swagman sat beside the billabong,
Under the shade of a coulibah tree,
And he sang as he sat and waited till his billy
boiled:
Who'll come a-waltzing matilda with me
Chorus:
Waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda
Who'll come a-waltzing matilda with me
And he sang as he sat and waited by the billabong
Who'll come a-waltzing matilda with me.
Down came a jumbuck
to drink beside the billabong
Up jumped the swagman and seized him with glee
And he sang as he tucked the jumbuck in his
tuckerbag
You'll come a-waltzing matilda with me
Chorus:
Waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda
You'll come a-waltzing matilda with me
And he sang as he tucked the jumbuck in his
tuckerbag
You'll come a-waltzing matilda with me.
Down came the
stockman, riding on his thoroughbred,
Down came the troopers, one, two, three.
"Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in
your tuckerbag?
You'll come a-waltzing matilda with me
Chorus:
Waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda
You'll come a-waltzing matilda with me
Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your
tuckerbag?
You'll come a-waltzing matilda with me.
Up jumped the
swagman and plunged into the billabong,
"You'll never catch me alive," cried he
And his ghost may be heard as you ride beside the
billabong,
Who'll come a-waltzing matilda with me
Chorus:
Waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda
Who'll come a-waltzing matilda with me
And his ghost may be heard as you ride beside the
billabong,
Who'll come a-waltzing matilda with me.
|
Definitions
Billabong - Originally an aboriginal word for
a section of still water adjacent to a river, cut off by
a change in the watercourse, cf. an oxbow lake. In the
Australian outback, a billabong generally retains water
longer than the watercourse itself, so it may be the only
water for miles around.
Billy
- A tin can,
maybe two litres (four pints) in capacity, usually with a
wire handle attached to the top rim, in which 'swaggies'
(and contemporary Australian campers) boil water to make
tea (and to kill the beasties in the water they've taken
out of the billabong).
Coolibah
tree (also coolabah) -
A particular kind of eucalyptus which grows beside
billabongs.
Jumbuck
- A sheep
Squatter - As Australia was settled, there
was of course little or no authority and bureaucracy in
place. People 'squatted' on patches of land, grazed their
animals, grew their crops and built their houses and
fences. In due course, as authority arrived, it generally
accepted the claims of whoever was in apparent possession
of the land (aboriginals had been no match for armed
white men, and anyway were largely nomadic across
reasonably large areas). Particularly in good quality
grazing country, squatters quickly became relatively very
well off, hence the term 'squattocracy' which blends
'squatter' with 'aristocracy'. The constabulary tended to
work with them to maintain law and order. To
non-land-owners, squatters were an object of resentment.
Swagman - A gentleman of the road, an
itinerant roaming country roads, a drifter, a tramp, a
hobo. Carried his few belongings slung in a cloth, which
was called by a wide variety of names, including 'swag',
'shiralee' and 'bluey'. Given the large number of names
for them, they must have been a pretty common sight.
Troopers - Cavalry soldiers, or perhaps
mounted militia-men or policemen. To a swaggie, what was
the difference??
Tucker-bag - A bag to keep tucker in. (Tucker
is food.)
Waltzing
matilda
- Matilda was
a mock-romantic word for a swag, and to waltz matilda was
to hit the road with a swag on your back. The term is
thought to come from a German expression, Auf die Walz
gehen, meaning to take to the road, and Mathilde is a
girl's name, applied to one's bed-roll. So the poem
(doggerel? folk song?) can be interpreted as yet another
Aussie complaint about them in authority. We're one of
the most urbanised nations in the world, who sort-of
yearn for the wide open spaces (there's so much of it out
there!), and the freedom that goes with it (or at least
seems to go with it, to those that don't live there). So
Waltzing Matilda strikes a chord (so to speak),
generation after generation, for the same reason that
Crocodile Dundee was as popular here as anywhere else -
we know we're not like that; but it's fun pretending for
a while that we are.
|
