The song was first recorded in 1926 as performed by John Collinson and Russell Callow. In 2012, to remind Australians of the song's significance, Winton organised the inaugural Waltzing Matilda Day to be held on 6 April, wrongly thought at the time to be the anniversary of its first performance. The song quickly grew in popularity and Cowan's arrangement remains the best known version of "Waltzing Matilda".Įxtensive folklore surrounds the song and the process of its creation, to the extent that it has its own museum, the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, in the Queensland outback, where Paterson wrote the lyrics.
In 1903, Marie Cowan changed some of the lyrics and wrote a new variation of the tune, and published it in sheet music as an advertising jingle for Billy tea. The original lyrics were composed in 1895 by Australian poet Banjo Paterson, to a tune played by Christina Macpherson. When the jumbuck's owner, a squatter ( grazier), and three troopers (mounted policemen) pursue the swagman for theft, he declares "You'll never catch me alive!" and commits suicide by drowning himself in a nearby billabong ( watering hole), after which his ghost haunts the site. The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker, or " swagman", making a drink of billy tea at a bush camp and capturing a stray jumbuck (sheep) to eat. The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot (waltzing) with one's belongings in a "matilda" ( swag) slung over one's back. It has been described as the country's "unofficial national anthem". " Waltzing Matilda" is a song developed in the Australian style of poetry and folk music called a bush ballad.
0 kommentar(er)
