Juan’s a jolly swagman: the Spanish Waltzing Matilda

lyndon says:

11:38pm | 16/06/09

climate and landscape wise, spain feels very much like australia in some parts, like in Malaga there are gumtrees all over the city!

it’s not our anthem by the way so that’s ok, relax, she’ll be right mate.

Paul says:

01:41am | 17/06/09

haha i’d just like to congratulate you on the brilliant title of this article.

iansand says:

08:31am | 17/06/09

Isn’t the tune to Waltzing Matilda an old Scots or Irish tune anyway?  Most Australian folk songs (and I know that WM is not a folk song) are.

Joe says:

08:46am | 17/06/09

I have always felt severely embarrassed that so many people seem to want a song about a thief who killed himself to be our national song.  And to have it used to promote our country..?  How about something uplifting and good about Australia?

laurie says:

08:54am | 17/06/09

There is some debate over the name of the swagman.  Yes it could be Jaun but also consider “Upjumped” as in Upjumped - the swagman.  Then we have “Wanc” as in Wanc - a jolly Swagman.

Jo says:

09:05am | 17/06/09

The swagman’s name is Andy…
Andy sang, Andy watched, Andy waited by the billabong….....

joseph says:

09:50am | 17/06/09

lyndon, the article doesnt say it is our Anthem, it says its our unofficial anthem. Read the article properly. But Jo, very funny portrayal of the swagmans name

Roslyn Ross says:

10:18am | 17/06/09

Waltzing Matilda is our unofficial national anthem and one day will be our official national anthem. The music is lyrical, the story whimsical and irreverent, and it makes all Australians emotional…. what better national anthem can a nation have? Nothing about war, greatness, power, glory .... just a song about an ordinary bloke down on his luck. Love it. The epitome of our ‘battler myth’ and one of the most beautiful and evocative pieces of music ever written.

Lyndon says:

10:28am | 17/06/09

Joseph.
To clarify, I was just making a general statement /comment that it’s not our anthem and so that’s ok by me. Not a specific reply to the article.
I did read the article, its a great article, and I didn’t mean it to sound like I was saying the article suggested it was our anthem.

Thanks Joseph, I will have to think carefully now how I word my comments in the future…. even if it’s just for your benefit

ej says:

10:40am | 17/06/09

Roslyn Ross, you’re having a laugh right? It is a song about a suicidal, thieving vagrant, why on earth would any country want that as a national anthem? It doesn’t make this Australian emotional, well except for the emotions that a sneer and an eye-roll convey. And who’d want to be a ‘little Aussie battler’ anyway? It is just another term for ‘loser’? And as for the tune, it has got to be the most dinky sounding song ever. Certainly not stirring enough for an anthem. Obviously good enough for selling mobile phones, though, to people who can’t understand the lyrics.

Ferdz says:

10:43am | 17/06/09

Well said Rosslyn Ross, agree 100%.

Zednik says:

10:56am | 17/06/09

If Rosslyn Ross thinks Waltzing Matilda is “the most beautiful and evocative pieces of music ever written,” then all I can say is that she is tone death. As for the origin of the tune, it came from the UK.

Max says:

12:45pm | 17/06/09

How on earth can Once a Jolly Swagman, possibly sum up the mood of fun in the sun and summer.  Give me a break.  Nowhere in the lyrics does it suggest the season is summer and if police chasing down a ciriminal for stealing livestock, only to have him drown himself if the “Billy-Bong”, is representative of fun, then I’m not travelling to Spain.  By the way.  He didn’t sing as he sat by his billy-bong (billabong), he sang as he sat, waiting till his billy (pot for cooking on a fire) boiled.  I just don’t get it.  A Spanish ad, with American children, singing an Australian song.  Something is lost in the translation…

RT says:

01:52pm | 17/06/09

Zednick: it’s a bit harsh to sentence Rosslyn Ross to ‘tone death’ just because she may be tone deaf.  You’re right, thouigh, that Waltzing Matilda is borrowed from an old English folk song with words adapted by Banjo Paterson. Me, I’ve always preferred the version by US singer/songwriter Tom Waits entitled ‘Tom Traubert’s Blues’.

Peter Warrington says:

02:56pm | 17/06/09

UP There Cazaly blows this s&*% out of the billabong. I’d die for that - it’s even anthemaic.

OBS says:

03:08pm | 17/06/09

Hm.  I read once (and if I get time will get the references) that Watzing Matilda is derived from a German First World War ditty, something like Aus der Waltz mit Mathilde (?sp? Can’t seak German!).  A Mathilde was the nickname for a long trench coat worn by the Germans.  A. B. Patterson just wrote a poem, and those words were then put to the German tune.

Anthem it probably isn’t in a strict sense but every Aussie knows it!  “Along with Tie me kangaroo down, sport” (and of the two I would prefer the first, myself!)  WM does relate to the history of Oz, squatters, aboriginal names, attitudes etc.

Alfred Deakin says:

03:33pm | 17/06/09

Some years ago I went to Combo Billabong (near Kynuna in Western Queensland) - this is apparently where Banjo Patterson got the inspiration to write the words (the tune, as others have stated, is “un-Australian”, like our Head of State). Locals said that it was partly inspired by a story of a shearer in the Shearer’s Strike of 1891 who later committed suicide.

Damien says:

04:02pm | 17/06/09

Epic.  Linguistic.  PHAIL.  “Hey, marketing dudes.  That song’s about a drifter who nicked a sheep and then drowned himself.”  “ORLY?”  “YARLY!.”  “NO WAI!”

Lee says:

07:16pm | 17/06/09

Mate . The world thinks of us as pretty laid back , here’s a bloke minding his own business and a sheep comes up to have a drink , probably got lost from the mob , and the perfect opportunity comes up . Hey have’nt we all taken that chance at some time . Poor bastard got caught.
I hope the spanish guys have got attitude and figure out the significance of what should be about the words not whether Bango nicked it from a UK folk song

Robbo of Wynn Vale SA says:

09:57am | 18/06/09

Will bring a smile to the South Australian Premier, Mike ‘Miguel’ Rann. After all, SA is screaming ahead with the assistance of Spanish business leaders:
Desal Plant, SPAIN
Warship Design, SPAIN
$6m leftover Trams, SPAIN
No-public-tender Govt Buildings, SPAIN

Recently, a prominent Adelaide journo bantered with a renaming of South Australia. I think South Spain will be quite appropriate, and why not replace the Piping Shrike with a Snorting Bull.

All makes sense to moi.

Bill Magoffin says:

04:51pm | 02/01/10

Waltzing Matilda was written by Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson while visiting Dagworth Station near Kynuna in Western Queensland in January 1895. He supplied the original lyrics which form an allegory of events surrounding the shearers war of 1894 that had culminated in the ‘Battle of Dagworth’ that had occured on the same spot only a few months before. The music was provided by Christina Macpherson, the sister of the Squatter who held Dagworth. She remembered by ear a march she had heard played at the Warrnambool races the previous April called “Craigilee”, which in itself was derived from a Scottish air, “Thou bonny wood of Craigilee”  by Robert Tannahill, who, incidentally drowned ina Scottish Billabong.

There are a number of resons why Paterson chose an allegorical representation of events, did not immediately publish it and denied Authorship for many years.

My G-G Grandfather was good mates with the Squatter and my Father wrote may books on the subject.