[981] The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
Thanks to Paul Stimpson, who suggested this as a followup to Poem #980
| The Band Played Waltzing Matilda |
Now when I was a young man I carried me pack
And I lived the free life of the rover.
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback,
Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over.
Then in 1915, my country said, "Son,
It's time you stop ramblin', there's work to be done."
So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun,
And they marched me away to the war.
And the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"
As the ship pulled away from the quay,
And amidst all the cheers, the flag waving, and tears,
We sailed off for Gallipoli.
And how well I remember that terrible day,
How our blood stained the sand and the water;
And of how in that hell that they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
Johnny Turk, he was waitin', he primed himself well;
He showered us with bullets, and he rained us with shell --
And in five minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell,
Nearly blew us right back to Australia.
But the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"
When we stopped to bury our slain,
Well, we buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs,
Then we started all over again.
And those that were left, well, we tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire.
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
Though around me the corpses piled higher.
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head,
And when I woke up in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead --
Never knew there was worse things than dying.
For I'll go no more "Waltzing Matilda,"
All around the green bush far and free --
To hump tents and pegs, a man needs both legs,
No more "Waltzing Matilda" for me.
So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed,
And they shipped us back home to Australia.
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane,
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla.
And as our ship sailed into Circular Quay,
I looked at the place where me legs used to be,
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me,
To grieve, to mourn and to pity.
But the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"
As they carried us down the gangway,
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared,
Then they turned all their faces away.
And so now every April, I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me.
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march,
Reviving old dreams of past glory,
And the old men march slowly, all bones stiff and sore,
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"
And I ask meself the same question.
But the band plays "Waltzing Matilda,"
And the old men still answer the call,
But as year follows year, more old men disappear
Someday, no one will march there at all.
Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda.
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong,
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
-- Eric Bogle
|
Today's poem (song, actually) highlights another of those aspects of a war
that get overlooked in the trumpet's blare. The war comes and goes, and
fades into irrelevance, and the heroes, 'reviving old dreams of past glory',
are largely forgotten by the next generation.
And, of course, there are those who carry a far more bitter legacy -
And when I woke up in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead --
Never knew there was worse things than dying.
says it all. Throughout, the primary mood is one of stark disillusionment -
or, rather, illusionlessness, made explicit in the verse
But the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"
As they carried us down the gangway,
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared,
Then they turned all their faces away.
Bogle gives the narrator's plight an extra poignancy by invoking Banjo
Patterson's famous "Waltzing Matilda", a song that, like much of
Patterson's work, idealises the 'free life of the rover'. The contrast is
conveyed as much by the music as by the words, actually, and the segue into
"Waltzing Matilda" in the last verse is almost heartbreakingly powerful.
Links:
http://www.westfront.de/eric_bogle_waltzing_matilda.htm has Bogle's
comments on the song
Biography of Bogle: http://www.stoneyport.demon.co.uk/bio/boglebio.html
Waltzing Matilda: http://www.ozramp.net.au/~senani/waltz.htm
-martin
From: gremio@
Dear Minstrels,
You posted this as poem #981, following up the March of the Dead in January
of this year. Today is ANZAC day, the 87th anniversary of the entrance
into Gallipoli.
I would suggest sending it out again, modulo your editorial judgement on
duplications, but even if not, I do have a few additions to the comments
below.
Best Regards,
Gremio
From: RJ <rlrjohns1@>
I was looking for the words to a very modern version of the popular
Australian anthem / song called "Waltzing Matilda" that I used to sing
in the 1980's. I've been also been playing it on my guitar since I
first heard way back then.
Your website seems to suggest that an Eric Bogle wrote it more recently
on 9 Jan 2002, as shown in your web-box at your website (copied below).
Sorry, but that's not possible. I consumed a lot of beer and bribed a
fellow military guy when I was serving in Germany to write down his best
memory of the words. And he had been playing it on his guitar for some
time as well!
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/981.html
981] The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
Title : The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
Poet : Eric Bogle
<http://www.cs.rice.edu/%7Essiyer/minstrels/index_poet_B.html#Bogle>
Date : 9 Jan 2002
1stLine: Now when I was a you...
Length : 64 Text-only version <javascript:;>
Prev <http://www.cs.rice.edu/%7Essiyer/minstrels/poems/980.html> Index
<http://www.cs.rice.edu/%7Essiyer/minstrels/index.html> Random
<http://www.cs.rice.edu/%7Essiyer/minstrels/index_random.html> Next
<http://www.cs.rice.edu/%7Essiyer/minstrels/poems/982.html>
Your comments
<mailto:ssiyer@?Subject=%5bminstrels%5d%20Comment%20on%20poem%20%23981%20%2D%20change%20not>
on this poem to attach to the end [microfaq <javascript:alert('You turn
in a comment,\nit shows up at the end of this page,\nso reload page in a
moment,\ndont include the entire page into the comment,\nkeep it
short,\nthanks for showing enthu!')>]
So, I guess there's something wrong with your dates. I also heard some
of the words different back in every version of this modern song that I
can recall from the 1980's. For example, the last verse contains a line
that sounds more like the following: "Year afer year their numbers get
fewer, some day no one will march there at all." I could be wrong about
these words because I don't really know the origins of this modern
Waltzing Matilda song - but I do know it's much older than 2002!
Cheers,
Rick
--Boundary_(ID_qubhavXfysEFdmxDaFe2uQ)
Content-type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title></title>
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff">
I was looking for the words to a very modern version of the popular
Australian anthem / song called "Waltzing Matilda" that I used to sing
in the 1980's. I've been also been playing it on my guitar since I
first heard way back then. <br>
<br>
Your website seems to suggest that an Eric Bogle wrote it more recently
on 9 Jan 2002, as shown in your web-box at your website (copied
below). Sorry, but that's not possible. I consumed a lot of beer and
bribed a fellow military guy when I was serving in Germany to write
down his best memory of the words. And he had been playing it on his
guitar for some time as well!<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/981.html">http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/981.html</a><br>
<br>
<h1><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial">
<center>981] The Band Played Waltzing Matilda</center>
</font></h1>
<center>
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0">
<!--minstrels--><tbody>
<tr>
<td><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial">Title :</font></td>
<td colspan="2"><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial"><b> The
Band Played Waltzing Matilda</b></font></td>
</tr>
<!--minstrels--><tr>
<td><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial">Poet :</font></td>
<td colspan="2"><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial"><b> <a
href="http://www.cs.rice.edu/%7Essiyer/minstrels/index_poet_B.html#Bogle">Eric
Bogle</a></b></font></td>
</tr>
<!--minstrels--><tr>
<td><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial">Date :</font></td>
<td colspan="2"><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial"><b> 9 Jan
2002</b></font></td>
</tr>
<!--minstrels--><tr>
<td><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial">1stLine:</font></td>
<td colspan="2"><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial"><b> Now
when I was a you...</b></font></td>
</tr>
<!--minstrels--><tr>
<td><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial">Length :</font></td>
<td><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial"><b> 64</b></font></td>
<td align="right">
<script language="JavaScript"> <!--
document.write('<!'+'--');
// --> </script><!--
<a href="../txt/981.txt" target="textonlypoem"><b>Text-only version</b></a>
<script language="JavaScript"> <!--
document.write('--'+'>');
// -->
<script language="JavaScript"> <!--
document.write("<a href=\"javascript:;\" onClick=\"javascript:window.open('../txt/981.txt','textonlypoem','menubar,scrollbars,resizable,height=500,width=400'); return false\"><b>Text-only version</b></a>");
// --> </script><a
href="javascript:;"
onclick="javascript:window.open('../txt/981.txt','textonlypoem','menubar,scrollbars,resizable,height=500,width=400'); return false"><b>Text-only
version</b></a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3">
<table width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td align="center"><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial"><a
href="http://www.cs.rice.edu/%7Essiyer/minstrels/poems/980.html">Prev</a></font></td>
<td align="center"><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial"><a
href="http://www.cs.rice.edu/%7Essiyer/minstrels/index.html">Index</a></font></td>
<td align="center">
<script language="JavaScript"> <!--
document.write('<font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial"><a href="../index_random.html">Random</a></FONT>');
// --> </script><font
face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial"><a
href="http://www.cs.rice.edu/%7Essiyer/minstrels/index_random.html">Random</a></font>
</td>
<td align="center"><font face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial"><a
href="http://www.cs.rice.edu/%7Essiyer/minstrels/poems/982.html">Next</a></font></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3" align="center"><font
face="sans-serif,Helvetia,Arial">Your <a
href="mailto:ssiyer@?Subject=%5bminstrels%5d%20Comment%20on%20poem%20%23981%20%2D%20change%20not">comments</a>
on this poem to attach to the end [<a
href="javascript:alert('You turn in a comment,\nit shows up at the end of this page,\nso reload page in a moment,\ndont include the entire page into the comment,\nkeep it short,\nthanks for showing enthu!')">microfaq</a>]</font></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</center>
<br>
So, I guess there's something wrong with your dates. I also heard some
of the words different back in every version of this modern song that I
can recall from the 1980's. For example, the last verse contains a
line that sounds more like the following: "Year afer year their
numbers get fewer, some day no one will march there at all." I could
be wrong about these words because I don't really know the origins of
this modern Waltzing Matilda song - but I do know it's much older than
2002!<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Rick<br>
</body>
</html>
--Boundary_(ID_qubhavXfysEFdmxDaFe2uQ)--
From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@>
Martin:
Thanks for your reply. I actually found historic and author info atthe
website: http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/matilda.html
It's a great song. And it's also nice to finally find the author andorigins.
I even played the "real audio file" with the author singingit (neat)!
Cheers,
Rick
Martin DeMello wrote:
> --- RJ <rlrjohns1@> wrote:
> > Your website seems to suggest that an Eric Bogle wrote it more recently
> > on 9 Jan 2002, as shown in your web-box at your website (copied below).
> > Sorry, but that's not possible. I consumed a lot of beer and bribed a
> > fellow military guy when I was serving in Germany to write down his best
> > memory of the words. And he had been playing it on his guitar for some
> > time as well!
>
> Hi Rick, The date merely means that that was our Poem of the Day for Jan
> 9, 2002. The date the poem was written, if included (we don't always do
> so) would be in the body of the page, under the poet's name.
>
> martin
From: "Kevin Rafferty" <scarecrow@>
G'day...there are superb covers of this song by Australian "bush" band
The Bushwackers and the Irish/English band The Pogues. As I recall the
Bushwackers had a major hit here with it from an album released in 1976,
but their version drops a verse (the third I think, where he says "Never
knew there was worse things than dying"). At the end of that version, a
brass band fades in playing Watzing Matilda...haunting stuff. Eric lives
in Adelaide, by the way, and has for many years, but he's originally
Scottish.
Kev (Melbourne, Australia)
From: "bizzie" <bizzie@>
This is a fantastic poem/song that dates back well before 2002!!! I
don't know when it was first written, but I first heard it in 1989, and
the guy who sang it had known it for years before that day. Whoever is
claiming to have written it in 2002 is fibbing and stealing someone
else's glory.
From: ICCU <ICCU@>
this is a great song. I cried the first time I heard it.
From: "International Legal Advisors, P. A." <ilapa@>
It is not possible that the poem and its music (have you heard it?) was
or were written in 2002. I was a student of Law at the American
University back in 1988 and there was a radio station which every
sunday night transmitted a program called Music Americana with Dicks
Erie. I listened to the song then, I recorded it so it is in no way a
song written recently!!!!!!!!
I shall look for the tape and will come back to you.
Roger, from Panama
From: Roger West <avion@>
One of the most meaningful poems (and songs) I have ever heard. Oh
what I would give to be able to put my name as its author.
Roger B West